Recovery: Birth
by HarunaRei
Summary: Classic AU: With his son Peter on his deathbed, Dr. Light resorts to an untested treatment: symbiotic nanites. Ten years later, the six first-generation Bioroids revolt. Rock fights to save his brothers, but is he? Cowritten with Laryna6.
1. The Beginning

_Co-authoring a story is fun. I highly suggest it if you know someone with a similar writing style. I'm collaborating with Laryna6 on this one. The writing is roughly 50/50. _

_We're doing a completely AU setting for this one. As much as I love the original story for Mega Man, it's already been told. I'd argue that it's not told particularly well, as it's a kids' game and so is not plot-intensive. Classic fics are a bit scarce on this site, too, which makes me sad. _

_Anyway, as this is an AU, the tech in here will be a bit different. We won't be following the weapons weaknesses very closely because of that. Ariga did a good job of justifying why certain Robot Masters were weak to certain weapons in Mega/Gigamix, but because of the way the tech in here is different, a lot of those justifications simply won't apply. _

_We're referencing both the Ariga manga and the classic games, especially for characterization purposes.  
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_We played with the reason for coming up with tech like this, too. In Classic, it's just like, okay, they built robots to help out for industrial purposes, but why are they humanoid? Fire Man would have worked just as well as a stationary incinerator. He could still have mastered the robots in his care that way. It could be that in a humanoid body, it'd be easier for the human workers to get used to the Robot Masters, but I'd think they'd have vaulted into the deepest depths of the Uncanny Valley, especially given that Bomb Man and Cut Man aren't that realistic looking. With the humanoid bodies and unnecessary abilities, of COURSE the evil genius reprogrammed them and used them as soldiers. A freezer isn't nearly as frightening as an adorable kid in a parka shooting ice from his mouth._

_In the English/American version, it implies that Wily helped with creating them, and maybe duped Light into making them humanoid. As far as I can tell, in the original, Wily had no part in their design. _

_Mega Man/Rockman belongs to Capcom.  
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_Consider this chapter a preface to set up the story. _

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><p>The world was a red darkness that flickered with a million points of light, the funeral pyres of burnt-out brain cells. There were things—<em>hands—<em>that applied cold cloths and water, or tried to let things trickle down his throat. But instinct attributed the pain to them and wanted to fight them off: they were the only things that _could _be fought off. He wanted to get well, even though he knew death was coming for him.

Someone else already died here, someone with pale skin and cold hands, someone that coughed blood up onto the sheets. His fingers dug into the sheets until he lost the strength to.

In fevered dreams, demons tortured his flesh with red-hot pokers.

In reality, his father spoke to him, unheard, and gave him more needles, more medications. The virus would not win.

Death came as an untraceable virus, hidden in the blood supply; it was a silent killer that came from reusing needles. Needles like the ones used to give vaccine injections to the family of a doctor that came to Japan to teach at a university and study Asian diseases—the irony burned. A disease that attacked the immune system, leaving the victims vulnerable to anything and everything else: even the common cold could move in like a vulture to take what it would of the living corpse to proliferate itself.

There might be a cure, but for it to be put in place, the remainder of the immune system would have to be destroyed.

His father whispered that he would be alright.

The part of his brain that recorded memories was already gone, and what was built in its place would never hear that voice speak those words.

That the child could hold even the tiniest flicker of life through to the next morning was a miracle in itself. He was fortunate, however, to have the father he did. For generations to come, his father would be known as the man whose efforts revolutionized medicine. Redefined what it meant to be human.

Days passed and filtered into weeks. Every day, the results were a bit more promising. Blood count returning to healthy levels, breathing becoming less labored. Brain activity normalizing, fever dissipating. The child slept easily.

And finally, he opened his eyes.

At this point, Dr. Light almost panicked. The boy—his son—wasn't speaking. He wasn't comatose, no, but had the treatment come too late? He _was_ responsive to various stimuli. He could see Light, see the stethoscope and syringes. He could hear his father's approach and the wind outside. It was as if the boy sustained massive brain damage. Had his mind not been repaired? His motor control was jerky; he was massively overestimating everything. It was not unlike an infant, figuring out its limbs.

He did watch, though. He watched everything, and everyone. He watched his father come in to administer the meds, he watched the nurse move about the room, fixing his blanket and checking his readings. It didn't bother the others, but it was just so _different_ from the boy Light had known. This calm calculation with eyes that did not miss a thing—it wasn't the person Light remembered. And who knew what he was thinking: none of it translated to the boy's face. None of it even reflected in his eyes. Even a baby laughed.

That may have creeped the nurse out a bit if it wasn't for the fact that such symptoms weren't uncommon for someone who'd maintained a massive head injury. She spoke to him more than his father had by this point, cheerfully telling him about the weather, or his charts. She greeted him happily, and always said good-bye. It was hard for Light to pretend to be so happy now, given what he was seeing. The mind seemed functional, yes, but something was terribly wrong. It sent a chill down his spine to even be in that room now.

It could just be amnesia. He could be guarded, worried: a lab, medical instruments everywhere, needles and monitors. He'd hired an Englishwoman as a nurse since his son had learned only the bare minimum of Japanese. If the research hospital didn't have the best facilities, he would take him home. He had wanted him here so that they could spend as much time with him as possible. His colleagues and the nurse wondered why he wasn't trying to jog his son's memory, why Light was letting others conduct the reflex tests, why he was letting them ask the boy for permission and explain each procedure, when surely the father would be more reassuring.

Leaving the television on in his room was almost a token effort, an excuse he could use to say that he was being given enough stimuli. The more things he was exposed to, the more likely he was to comment on something.

He regretted that he'd had all his wife's possessions boxed away, in futile hope of protecting their son from the spread of disease. Diseases. To open them up now, to have him look at them like that?

Their intelligent son, who even at sixteen had been reading old calculus textbooks and understanding them. Current thought said that calculus would overheat boys' brains, and should not be studied before college, but the medical profession laughed at that.

He brought in picture books instead, because if he could not talk there was no hope at all that Peter would be able to read.

Well, books with illustrations, at least. Dinosaurs and airplanes: the sort of book he'd been fond of three years ago, until he'd become too old for such things once again.

The books bemused him. He'd look at them, certainly, it was a new stimulus, after all, but he wasn't engaged with them the way a child might be. There was no wonder at what the images conveyed and Light had to wonder to himself whether the boy even understood the book's purpose. The images were chronological; they clearly told a story. That sort of imagery should be rather novel, outside of whatever cartoons may have slipped past his radar on the TV.

He watched Peter flip through the book, giving it the time of day, but barely that. Unimpressed. When he looked back up to his father, Light had to suppress a shudder. There wasn't anything conveyed there. Not bewilderment, not annoyance, not amusement. In time, though, Light reassured himself—things like this did not repair overnight. It could be amnesia very easily. He could be a stranger to his own son. If his memory couldn't be jogged, they'd just have to go from there.

He seemed to understand when they spoke, after a while. Or was it their tone of voice? If the request was a new one, he'd merely continue watching them. The first few times, the nurse and other researchers would pause, feeling a bit awkward. They'd finally taken to moving his arms, or shifting him to show him what they meant. Now he knew that when the nurse approached with a needle, he should offer his arm. She'd noticed that the needles that had once bruised his skin now left no mark. If she'd allowed herself to think more deeply into it, she may have had the sense to report that to Dr. Light. No one healed that fast.

The first time he moved unprompted was when a resident dropped a plate. He reached out in the direction of it. "That," he said in English. "Plate. Plate," he repeated, the second time in Japanese. "Fix."

The man hesitated, but carefully handed him the larger pieces, watching to make sure he didn't cut himself, trying to observe everything he could. Peter held them carefully, studying the geometry of each piece. The resident was alarmed when he thought the boy'd cut himself, but there was no blood, so he inched towards the door, trying not to take his eyes off him. "Tell Dr. Light he's spoken," he whispered, after flagging down a nurse. The pieces turned in Peter's hands, fitting together. He placed them on his lap, touching where they joined. He made sounds in his throat, concentrating. Soft sounds, almost hums, on the edge of hearing.

There was a feeling of quiet urgency over the entire wing as Dr. Light found himself moving toward his son's room as quickly he could without breaking into an outright sprint. The research going on here was beyond top secret, so where there may have been excited whispers in the hall, there was nothing, just that maddening anticipation. It took all of a minute for Light to get down to his son's room, but it felt like an eternity. He slowed as he neared, staying quiet and listening. It wouldn't do to interrupt, not if an interruption meant another prolonged period of silence.

It was the first time there had been emotion on his face besides study: curiosity. He seemed almost happy as he traced near-invisible lines. He ignored Dr. Light when the man came to look over his shoulder. Until, finally, he smiled. "There, done," he quoted, what many had said when they were finished with tests.

His tone even mimicked the emotion he'd heard when the people around him said it. Light's eyes widened at seeing the boy's smile. Something like relief flooded through him, though it left a backwash of apprehension. _This isn't right_, a voice in the back of his mind told him. He looked down to the plate, then glanced up at the resident, his gaze questioning.

"I dropped a plate," the man said apologetically. "He asked for it, so I gave it to him."

"Fixed. Cured," the boy said in one language, and then repeated in the other. He seemed almost cheerful, pleased with himself.

Light was silent for a moment, his attention caught between two things—his son's voice!—and what the resident was saying. What those words _meant. _That plate was ceramic, not plastic or paper. "It's in one piece," Light's voice was a bit weak with his own disbelief, "He fixed it?" He tried to gain footing in his own comfort zone. It would have been better to ask Peter directly, to address him, get a conversation started, but Light's head was spinning with what this _meant_.

"All better now," the boy said, and this time there was a questioning lilt. He corrected himself: "All better?" his voice was higher-pitched, more like that of the nurse.

"Has it been mimicry this entire time?" It wasn't the mindless mimicry of a parrot; the words the boy was using were correct in their application, though rather than it sounding like him genuinely speaking, it sounded more like he was imitating phrases he'd previously heard. Like he was playing off sound files. Light took a step back, eyeing the boy analytically.

"Mimicry. Mimicry? Which is it." One had the questioning lilt, one didn't. "Tonal languages. Chinese. What do you think, Dr. Light?" he asked, like an eager student.

Light froze, his rational side at war with his emotional side. A cold weight was settling into his stomach as he prayed desperately, to whatever god would listen, that what appeared to be happening here wasn't the case. "…It is both." He could feel the doctors' eyes on him, and he was thankful that his back was, for the most part, facing them.

"Mimicry. A statement. A fact. It is already understood to be true." He could see the boy's attention center on him as he explained. "Mimicry? A question. An unknown quantity, requesting confirmation." He watched Peter's face the entire time. The emotion that passed over it seemed a bit jarring. Rather than the natural flow of emotion, it was almost like he was switching between different expressions, flipping through different displays.

"Thank you. What is mimicry? What does this mean?" Three more quotes, asking him if he was piecing them together correctly. Studying him, to see if this was working. Whether he was communicating correctly. "Is it a bad sign?" A question asked about symptoms.

It was like hearing a language quilt, like voice clips from various shows threaded together to convey a message. It was jarring and unnatural, but even as they spoke, it was slowly slipping into something more fluid, even if his inflection and intonation were still all over the place. Light had to take a moment to calm his nerves before answering.

"Mimicry is an appropriation of something else." That was too vague. "It is a simulation. An approximation. Something close, but not exact." Not genuine. Not _real. _

"Incorrect. Broken. Fixing. Healing? Is it getting better? I'll do my best, Dr. Williamson." That part was cheerful: Dr. Light's colleague tended to encourage his patients. He also wasn't here.

Dr. Light nodded slightly, more than a little unnerved by this development. He knew that this should be a good sign: communication was an _impossibly wonderful_ sign, and the others were elated, but if what he suspected were true, then—no. He was not going to make assumptions based on barely two minutes of solid data with next to no context. He had to remember: this case was unique. This case was _groundbreaking._ They knew they'd be diverging from the status quo. This wasn't the time to make judgments; this was the time to compile notes. This was the time to observe. This was his son. He couldn't afford to be hasty. "Yes…we will all do our best."

"You're humoring... me." That was a change to the quote, a correction. "It's not a good idea to tell a patient that you're worried when you don't have to." He tried again with, "What's wrong?" That nurse's again, an echo of her concern for someone who was very sick.

The depth and spread of the probable answers to that question were so numerous that it'd have made Light laugh if the situation hadn't been so serious. The boy was surprisingly astute at reading people for someone who couldn't convey emotion very well. "I am just surprised, is all, at the speed of your progress. It usually takes months for a patient to speak with the ease you are." He managed a smile. "It is a good sign, though an unexpected turn. Not all surprises are bad ones, even in hospitals." He did genuinely mean what he said. Of course, there was the matter of that plate. How quickly could he get that under a microscope for examination?

"Sometimes using the wrong suffix is extremely rude. Was that the error, or was there another error?" He frowned, seemed thoughtful, perhaps wondering if that was correct, then frowned again. "Limbic system. Smiling releases endorphins that boost mood."

"Suffix?" What? Light frowned, trying to think back to when a suffix was used, but came up empty.

"Williamson? I used the wrong word again, didn't I?" The common refrain of Dr. Williamson, although the polyglot mostly did it when his mind threw up a word in the wrong language, or when he was half asleep.

Light looked blankly at his son for a few moments, then—oh! "No, no," He shook his head, "Williamson is a surname, not a suffix. Doctor is the title." It wasn't incorrect at all. Was that why he thought Light was upset?

"Surname. Family name. English uses family names second, so it's called the last name." He seemed pleased to have figured it out. "Give me your arm," he said, reaching out, the way they would say when they put a needle in, when they'd had him on IVs or were taking samples for tests.

Another moment of hesitation, but Light wordlessly offered his right arm, his gaze sharp and focused. Even if this development was unprecedented and utterly unexpected, there was still no reason to be apprehensive, despite what his gut may be telling him.

He took his father's hand. "The amount of genetic similarity between humans and monkeys is... Children inherit one set of each chromosome from each parent. Sex is determined by the Y chromosome. The Y chromosome is the smallest, isn't that funny..."

Everyone turned to stare at the resident.

"I was reviewing for that test in here, yes."

"Y chromosome match... Minor variations... Accounted for by mutation: genetic damage to telomeres accumulates with age. A father's Y chromosome is identical to his son's: this would be a more accurate determination of paternity than blood tests."

"This diagnosis is also supported by..." they could hear the seam in the sentence. "Scent is the sense most closely related to memory. But I don't have anything, we just moved... and his mother... Maybe the hospital scents will help, he's spent a lot of time in them, visiting you, hasn't he?" Fragments of a discussion with Dr. Williamson now.

It was a bit odd, trying to piece together the meaning when Peter seemed unable to plainly say what he was thinking. He'd begun editing sentences together, but nothing thus far seemed original. Something about this felt completely unnatural and this wasn't right, _this wasn't right at all. _This was his son, and his son was up and alert and talking and trying to reach out. He should be happy, he should be relieved. This was where everyone got all teary-eyed and started hugging each other. The mood in the room couldn't be more in opposition. He let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding in those scattered seconds and found his voice.

"You were able to understand us for a while, then." That was good, that meant his mental faculties got back on their metaphorical feet much more quickly than first thought. That made him speaking to them now slightly more plausible. "This supports the amnesia theory," Light sighed. The boy had been inquiring about who he is. Light didn't know how to answer that. Not right now. Not when there was evidence that…no. That wasn't a conclusion he should ever jump to. "Do you recall anything before this hospital room? Not just sights, but any sounds or sensations?"

"There was extensive brain damage. I am working on... data recovery, but there was a system crash. Don't you keep paperwork?" The hospital's computer systems were experimental and temperamental, so paper copies were a must lest all their data be lost.

"The language center was entirely destroyed. I am trying to repair it. Learning English is just like learning medical terminology: memorization, memorization, memorization. You'll... I'll pick it up," he corrected.

There was a soft murmur from the others in the room, but to Light, it could have been static. This was….he couldn't assume it was anything else, not any more. His face was a bit ashen and it felt like a block of ice was weighing down his stomach.

This was..how? _How?_ How could this have happened? It would be foolish to turn a blind eye to this now. He needed to validate this theory. He straightened up, his hand slack and slipping away from the…unknown entity on the bed.

"Call Dr. Williamson in. Let him know of these developments." This was just too much.

"Don't go yet." He frowned again: what had he done wrong?

"I'd like another blood sample sent for analysis." He was in full-blown Doctor and Head Researcher mode now. "You, monitor his condition and update Dr. Williamson when he arrives." That was directed toward the resident. He didn't need to tell them to keep quiet about this; that, at least, was a given. He glanced back at the...he needed to give it a designation, and soon. "I will return shortly. " With that, he turned on his heel and left the small hospital room.

"Don't... go... What did I go wrong?" The switch from distress to frustration was sudden. "This is wrong. People are supposed to be with their families... You need to spend time with him, damn it! I know it bothers you, but you can't give up yet, you _know _you got the programming right. It's going to fix him." Then, in a broken voice, "It has to, because I don't know what else to do." That was Dr. Light. He nodded, decision made. He swung his legs over the side of the bed: the physical therapist had been leading him around for weeks now. "Goodbye. Excuse me? Both?" He'd figure it out later.

"Wait, you can't..."

"I have to. It's my function. Excuse me," he repeated himself, wanting the resident to move out of his way to the door.

When that didn't work, he frowned. "Adrenaline rush, strength is limited by tearing of muscle fibers except in emergencies... Theoretical capability to repair... Goodbye." When he started moving again, he moved _fast_.

Light heard the sound of running feet heading toward him. He looked back, already having a feeling of what was going on. The part of his mind that housed the researcher and analyst wondered how it was coordinated enough to run like that? Last time he'd seen it with the physical therapist, its movements were still stiff and uncertain. Light stopped walking and allowed it to catch up to him, though his own adrenaline was through the roof. His mouth was set in a grim line, wearing the very same stern expression that would silence over-ambitious interns.

A hand clutched at his lab coat, but the tug was gentle. "Please, don't go." It leaned against him. "This is wrong. You're unhappy. I'm supposed to fix things. You wanted me to make things better." He'd prayed that it would work. "The physiological reaction... People are supposed to be with family."

Light wasn't good with social situations, not the way Albert was. Granted, he wasn't challenged in dealing with people, but standing here, in this situation, he couldn't help but feel ill equipped to handle it. He had to somehow disconnect himself from his inner turmoil and deal with this. Okay. It was upset, somehow. Something was going on with the treatment. These side effects…the cold knot tightened in his gut and he sighed, closing his eyes for a moment. He knew that despite what it could do, it was still weak. It still needed bed rest, and undue stress could be disastrous. His son could still be in there, and what if this just set them back?

Very gently, but not quite gingerly, he put a hand on the child's shoulder. "My leaving upset you?" This much? "I said I would be back later. I meant that." Someone Peter's age shouldn't be so attached to his parents. Light leaving, even on a bad note, shouldn't upset a teenager so.

"You were unhappy. I'm supposed to fix things and make them better. There are more reasons, but... I don't know the words. Except..." Dr. Light could feel that the heartbeat was fast, the breathing as well, as though he was panicked. "You should stay with him more," he said, another quote.

"Family is important. Both my 'heart'—Is that the right word? — It gets used for emotions and an organ that... Oh! The pulse varies according to emotional state. So it serves as an indicator. Of emotions." The question, trying to make sure he had the right words distracted him, but he tried again. "Medical advice is that you should stay. This is confirmed by status indicators. So... Also, if you go, I can't fix everything that's making you unhappy. That's what you wanted, isn't it?"

"What I...wanted." Was it? His voice was a bit faint. This was how it was interpreting things? Light sighed and squeezed the boy's shoulder lightly, an effort that took little thought. Fix everything? He wasn't sure that everything could be fixed, not any more. He needed more information. "You should be resting. Running around isn't good for you." He began to walk back toward the hospital room, his arm nudging the boy along with him. Maybe for now, he should just play doctor. At least until Albert arrived. Then he'd be able to sit down and…do what? His head was spinning. None of this…was this really what he'd wanted? A fix for everything? Was this really what he'd said, what he'd enforced?

"I healed the damage. He wouldn't get out of the way and I had to see you." The boy was happy to walk by his side, close, as though it had no idea of personal space.

He allowed it to continue, seeing no point in creating undue stress any more than he already had. Really, the implications here should be exciting, and they would be, if not for what he may have paid in exchange for this. There had to be a way to undo this, to regain his son. He needed to find out where it went wrong so he could nudge this back on track. It hadn't been long: it had requested data, so there had to be something left.

"You mean the plate? How did you repair it?" He looked up and around: the hall was conspicuously absent of medical personnel. Anyone without the highest level of clearance would have been ushered out the second this child opened his mouth.

"I meant my leg muscles this time. The plate was repaired the same way." He frowned. "I used my nanites, the way you told me to. It was instinct. Or programming? I'm not sure what the difference is." He lowered his eyes. "I intended to wait to talk until I was sure I was doing it right, but I wanted to fix the plate. It made me happy, so I wasn't thinking about other things."

Aside from this anomaly, this presence, it seemed to be working the way it was supposed to. "You should only speak about the nanites when you're around either myself or Dr. Williamson, and no one else, like we are now." The others weren't to know. Not now. Not when everything was balanced on the edge of a knife, poised to topple down on everything Light had ever worked for.

It was editing its sentences more cleanly now, though Light wasn't sure why it clung to his side so. He forced his mind to remain focused on business, not on his emotional state or what this thing's presence might mean.

He nodded. "Yes, Father. Dr. Williamson is my other father?" Right?

Light actually faltered in his gait at that, a sickening feeling moving along his spine. The sensation doubled on itself, making him feel very vulnerable in that instant. In a sense, it wasn't wrong, but the very idea of acknowledging it as his son...he'd never felt this sensation before. Was it grief? Rage? Was he offended? Disgusted? He was all of it, and none of it. He felt numb. He felt _sick. _"No." Sick. "Creator is a more correct term." Sick in his heart, sick to his stomach. They arrived at the door to the hospital room.

"Because there isn't a genetic relationship... I made you unhappy again. I'm sorry, I know genetics are important. I didn't mean to imply that you weren't important, Father." It wrapped its arms around him. "This helps," it said, smiling. "According to my research on brain biochemistry." It was proud.

Light stiffened when it hugged him, but he allowed it to do so for a socially acceptable span of time before separating it from his person. He was being gentle but firm. Even if it thought this was a good thing, there was so much sick and wrong about this that he didn't even know where to begin. It didn't even seem to perceive that there was something macabre and unnatural about its own situation. And when had it researched brain biochemistry? Certainly, a set amount of knowledge had been imparted for it to do what it needed to, but to "research" something? It being so proud may have been cute, had the whole situation not been so _wrong. _

It tilted its head at him. "Am I not doing it right? It made me happy, but not you. That can't be right."

It was asking what wasn't right when, in reality, Light was hard-pressed to find something that wasn't _wrong. _He sighed and led it into the hospital room. He had to try to explain it in a way it would understand. "I just need some time. There are some things that cannot be done with…outside assistance."

"So that leaves inside assistance." It smiled and nodded. Placed a hand on his chest, and warmth radiated from it. Suddenly, he felt awake and energetic, lips wanting to curl into a smile. "There, that's better." It snuggled against him again.

He actually felt a lot more comfortable. Safe? Not that Light was being kept safe so much that he wasn't being threatened. Anymore. His heart rate slowed to a more natural rate as his adrenaline levels fell some. His body relaxed. It was true: he did feel better this way.

"What did you just do?" His voice was barely a whisper. It could do this much? The medical implications were beyond monumental. But this way, it was like a violation. He couldn't let this continue. Even if it felt good…getting pumped with drugs felt good, too. Bad feelings were there for a reason; to remove them was to nullify not only the alarm, but also a good portion of the security system.

"Fixed the unhappiness. You said that it couldn't be fixed with outside assistance, so I provided inside assistance. Was that not the right treatment either?"

"Don't…don't do that without permission. It…people aren't used to being manipulated that way. It's not right, to make someone feel something untrue. Unhappiness…happens for a reason. Wariness and unease are important feelings, even if they don't feel good." It was like pulling himself through a fog. "Without pain, we wouldn't know when something is wrong. Killing the pain, but not the problem, doesn't solve anything. It usually just lets it fester and become worse." He needed it to understand why this was wrong, why he could not allow this.

This thing could become very dangerous, if it couldn't understand.

"I'm sorry I assumed I knew what you were talking about, Father. I should have known. I know that pain is an important status indicator, but... you were unhappy." It held him tightly. "I was... your unhappiness was the reason for my unhappiness, but I should have thought about the reason for yours."

"It is alright, but…try to remember. Everything is in place for a reason. Even if it seems nonsensical, that doesn't mean it is pointless or useless. There is a reason, even when we can't see it." The truth was what he'd always done his best to seek out. He tried to keep an open mind so that he could see the truth. He feared it wouldn't be enough.

The boy nodded. "I'm trying to put everything back the way it was, father. I've read the genetic code and everything." To be sure he was fixing it right. "So please don't be sad, Father. I'm still replacing the data in the brain, and I'm not sure about some of the instinctive survival requirements, but everything else is fixed." He promised that, "I'm definitely not going to die. So please don't be sad, Father."

A status report. It was trying to reassure him. Let him know that it was doing its best, that it was trying to cover every base. Tell him it'd be okay. Light nodded slightly, slumping a bit before shifting his weight. He'd always been a larger man, but he'd put on quite a bit of weight in the past few years. "Just focus on restoring everything." Its words did relieve him slightly, despite himself. Despite what he suspected.

The boy nodded. "Of course I will. That's what you made me for. I won't get bored or knock off work early: fixing things is what makes me happiest. Thank you for giving me something so important to fix."

He pressed his face into his father's chest. "I know I'm experimental, but I'll get better. I absolutely won't let you down, Father."

Light sighed, though it wasn't a dejected or disbelieving one. A tired sigh. He knew his own programming well enough to know that it honestly believed what it was saying. "I know." How had it become so autonomous, though, to be able to make judgment calls like this? Had it used the human mind as a template, and continued from there? There were far too many unknowns. He ran a hand along the child's upper back, his mind occupied with determining where to even begin. He needed to discern the coding that led it to this result, how it had reasoned that this was the best way. He'd expected either a vegetable or his son. Instead, this was the result. And he had no idea how.

"There you are! I heard you were finally up and about."

"Dr. Williamson!" Suddenly, Dr. Light's... creation was hugging someone else.

"Are you feeling better?"

"All status nominal, except some of the instinctive ones I'm not sure about. And I lost 95% of the brain data, even with redundant storage. I got confused and it turned out that one of the things that was trying to heal was a cancer trying to grow. It tricked me."

Light looked like hell, though he was doing his best to keep his face and mannerisms neutral to avoid upsetting the…perhaps they should determine its designation before anything else. He watched Albert's face for his reaction to the child's words.

Albert frowned. "Ninety-five percent... Can you tell me what your name is?"

"DRN.000 - Proto. It was brain data that was lost, not my programming data." He almost seemed to pout. "I'm not going to let my nanites mutate like that, and now I know how cells work better, I won't be fooled by cancer again, either."

Light's gaze was somber. Albert picked up on it as well. As far as he'd been able to tell, the nurse and resident hadn't suspected a thing, and they were long gone. A ninety-five percent loss in brain data…he felt sick all over again.

Dr. Williamson patted him on the head. "It's not your fault. I'm sure you did the best you could. We're the ones that programmed you, after all. A machine can only do exactly what it's told: you used the brain to think, didn't you? Otherwise, you couldn't have caught the cancer, and…the body would have died." He sighed.

The boy blinked.

"It was the brain data that was important, you see. That's where the personality is stored. Of all the places for a cancer..."

"It... I can replace data, but personality data? Is there some way to derive it?"

"Every human... every person is unique. If there is a way, it's beyond me." Dr. Williamson shook his head.

"I... failed?"

Had he recognized the cancer immediately, he wouldn't have encouraged its growth. The damage to Peter's personality and memories wouldn't have been nearly so devastating. How had they not anticipated that? Of course that was a risk—they'd had to completely take out the remnants of his immune system to even install this. Light rubbed his temple with one hand. What other suffering had his son endured in those final weeks? Did he really want to hear?

"Boy... Don't cry now."

The child's breath hitched, but he didn't sob, even though yes, that was water at the corners of his eyes. "It's a physiological response. My father said I wasn't supposed to hide pain or distress signals, Creator."

"Creator?" Dr. Williamson chuckled as he dug out a handkerchief. He kept a few: family members often needed them here. This hospital accepted the most desperate cases. "Sounds like I'm playing god. And it's alright, let it out. How old are you again? You were activated a few months ago, but it would have taken you some time to begin thinking... Anyway." He coughed: science later. "If you replaced most of the brain cells, your brain must be like an infant's. That's good, you'll need to learn quickly. But still, crying is only natural at that developmental stage."

Science. Light could handle science. He was very near his limit, and was suddenly very tired. "I think that…Proto…has been conscious since its eyes opened. It gathered observational data for some time—that's why it took so long to speak." It wasn't that it had amnesia: it was a blank slate with nothing to go on. The lab setting must have been somewhat intimidating, given all of the equipment and tests they'd constantly done.

"Um... That would depend on the definition of conscious, and I'm not sure I know exactly. Languages are very confusing, I raised the accuracy of my sense of hearing to get more data, and..." Its breath hitched again.

"It's not your fault: you've done very well."

"But, the success condition! I _failed!_" That now, that was a sob. "I'm supposed to _help_, that's what I'm _for, _and..."

"Think of it like any other medical treatment. We…your father and I... Peter was a dead boy walking. We gave him an untested treatment that we knew had only a very small chance of working without more refinement and animal tests for the sake of that hope, yes, but also so that he could... So that he could have a legacy. Contribute something to the future." Dr. Williamson stroked the boy's hair. "Five percent is better than zero percent, and you kept the body alive. That's good, that's very good: no one else has beaten this virus, and you had other diseases to deal with. It's our fault for forgetting that virus leaves people vulnerable to cancer as well."

So that was it then. More than likely. Unless they could figure something out, some way to obtain data for the unit to install…his son was dead. He'd known that this was a far more likely outcome than the cure working perfectly. He knew that with such an advanced case, it'd be next to impossible for a full recovery. He should be elated that the experiment worked so well. The unit essentially told them that, had the brain been left intact, the conversion would have been a complete success. To a less advanced case, it'd have been a sure cure. He shouldn't have hesitated. He shouldn't have waited so damn long. What did he have left now? The reality of it came crashing down on Light now that the initial shock was wearing off. His son was dead due to a simple oversight. Due to something that could have been patched had it been detected. They'd had the cure in their reach, an absolute cure for him, and now…the cure was here, but his son was not. His family was dead.

He'd heard that when bad news is delivered, truly devastating news, it's like every single detail of that moment was cemented in one's memory. Looking back on this day, Light would only have a very general recollection of abruptly turning and leaving the hospital room once more. The unit wasn't alone, it wouldn't be upset if he was gone. Everything seemed muffled and his mind was in a daze. It was like his wife all over again. He barely saw where he was going, he barely heard anything around him. His mind was whirling, and the only thing he could cling to was his destination: his office, and the solitude it promised.

The...thing...hadn't chased after him, although it had reached in the direction of his back before drawing back the hand, giving up. It had let Dr. Williamson take it back to bed and tuck it in, with a lollipop. It drew the covers over its head itself, later. It curled into a ball and cried for a long time. It slept, concealed under there, until the nurse came in to wake it in the morning.


	2. Breakdown

_This story is__ a collaboration between HarunaRei and Laryna6 on ._

_I think I forgot to mention: we're not Capcom. We don't own this franchise and we certainly aren't making any profit from this, other than having a creative outlet._

_To be honest, the "robots" in this 'verse (called "bioroids" from now on) are far, far more dangerous than anything in canon. Or more accurately, they have the potential to be far more dangerous. Dr. Light may seem this way right now, but he's not actually a bad guy. When someone asks you "Honestly, can your creation destroy all life on this planet?" and the __**honest answer**__ is, "Well, not right now, but at the rate he's learning…" what are you supposed to do? _

…_Would you believe that Proto Man's actually my favorite character? _

* * *

><p>Over a decade passed. The technology that originated from DRN.000 revolutionized modern medicine. Drs. Light and Williamson worked night and day, refining and improving the program and optimizing the design, until finally the request to put these "bioroids" into larger, but still controlled testing groups was granted. Hospitals the world over clamored for the chance to take up this program. Only the most elite were selected; a handful worldwide, and even then they had to agree to strict oversight from Light Medical.<p>

Dr. Light remained at the forefront of the innovation, and before long, he'd completed eight models. Two to be kept in a "household" environment, and the other six to be sent to a hospital each. Each of them had a slightly different nanite set, tuned to the expected needs of the countries they would be going to. Adaptability was an absolute must. The project was still secretive, but now whispers of it were beginning to leak to the press. It sent an electric hum through the medical field. Some claimed fraud. How could a machine take the place of human flesh? There was no way this could work, especially not on a large scale, with such a wide variety of cases, each with unique needs. Panaceas do not exist, and Light, they whispered, is yet another snake oil salesman

It really was a shame they'd lost the prototype. Its ability to configure nanites, to spot-fix glitches or irregularities, and to adapt on a case-to-case basis was unsurpassed. It had proven dangerous, however. It was capricious and unpredictable. It would constantly disregard orders and rely on its own judgment to act. Something that could rewrite a human's genetic structure with a thought, something that _would_ rewrite it, if it were deemed an improvement, was far too dangerous. Light had kept himself distanced from the prototype and spent as little time with it as he could. Seeing its face, never aging, forever caught in time, his son's face…it was too much.

He was confident, however, that these new models would exceed expectations, and in a good way. He'd personally see to it that no more parents had to watch their children die to such a horrible disease.

Rock was an affectionate boy, the same way Proto had been, unless he'd recently been scolded. Dr. Light doubted that was part of the original personality. They'd used a John Doe: a runaway that had lived on the streets. There had been an announcement on the news, offering any family a chance to come forward (or forever hold their peace) before they'd used the body for the second bioroid test prototype. No one had.

002, 'Roll,' had the same story. It had been even harder to get authorization for a female child-based bioroid, but there had to be tests on both genders, after all.

Later, they'd verified that adult subjects with intact brains couldn't adapt to the nanites. They could take basic orders, since the language data Proto had needed to replace was already there.

Albert had called him Blues. Dr. Light couldn't listen to some of his favorite songs anymore, or anything that used a harmonica. One more thing to damn Dr. Williamson for.

Albert proposed that even those with adult brains would adapt over time, since the human brain actually did create _some _new connections, but it was the test of Cut that had finally gotten them approval for placing the first six in hospitals.

Life-saving technology delayed all these years by an aberration with his son's face and...

Well.

The fact the next generation couldn't mutate their nanites meant they were far safer, but they could only regrow organs, produce more type O- blood, and other such things. They were portable organ banks growing cloned organs. The younger brains of Rock and Roll meant that they could also take more complicated orders that required actual thought. It was easier for them to handle incoming data and react to it. Data like the emotional reactions from both humans and themselves.

Now that they had been awakened, now that they'd started constructing sentences and opinions of their own, Rock liked to talk and run around. Roll extended her 'fix' instinct to cleaning the house, which was honestly something Light hoped for.

It was Rock that was actually important. If he could learn to do actual procedures in the lab, could he become observant enough to assist in operations?

Could he heal, the way Proto had? Every sick person in the hospital in the span of a night, done on a whim because he'd been _feeling unhappy _and fixing things took him away from that. It was what he was made for and it let him pretend things were all right.

So many different conditions, and he hadn't missed a single one. None of them had taken him more than half a minute to puzzle out.

Rock could heal injuries to his own body, from removed kidneys to scraped knees. He had no idea where to start making someone young again, the way Blues had Dr. Williamson one day, as thanks, a few weeks before the time bought by Albert's protests ran out.

Rock wanted to figure out how, though. Rock worried about Dr. Light as much as Roll did.

Attachment instinct. Human. Caused by the brain the nanites interfaced with.

That had been real in Blues. It was real in the two of them. He wished he could discount this data. Because Blues had been _terrifying_. What he could do, what he could do by _accident, _if mutating nanites escaped him?

He still woke up in the middle of the night sometimes, remembering what happened when the sniper's bullets hit Blues. It had to be done that way, because if he'd had any advance warning? He was faster, stronger, than any human.

Blood and other things everywhere, later cleaned up by flamethrowers. One to his head, two more into his torso, and they'd carried the body into the incinerator. Destroyed all the samples they'd taken, just to be on the safe side. Even the cures he'd given them, for the ills he'd discovered how to fix that night.

Being forced to start all over again made it easier to argue to the courts that he wasn't using any of Albert's work.

His former partner managed to get a few countries to outlaw it, considering it inhumane as well as dangerous, but they'd come around. Their citizens would cross the borders, if that were the way to survive. Eventually, this would become a reliable, tested medical technology, and only crackpots would think it was dangerous. They were calling him the new Louis Pasteur.

Numbers 003-008 had been sent out to hospitals and they'd begun testing replacement organs grown by them on the general population. And then?

A research hospital in Canada was encased in ice.

Japan's was surrounded by something like a force field, and when its connection to the power grid was cut off, targeted lightning strikes made it impossible to approach.

Blues' 'magical' abilities had been those of a faith healer. But this? This was just going to give more ammunition to the credulous calling this black magic and only serve to arm the reporters and journalists that were making zombie apocalypse and evil dead jokes.

Elec was the first to appear, ranting about human evil and how they torture their victims, lobotomizing them and locking them in bodies barely able to think: the humans who profited from their pain would pay, it said, and when the first few hostages were released while the world watched, they were changed. Far more obviously than any of Dr. Light's creations had ever been.

Metal patches on their skin. Something akin to claustrophobia, although the psychologists soon figured out that it was loneliness: that the changed, like Blues, _needed _to be around others. Oxycotin and other hormones were produced by human contact, and the healing nanites were obsessed with keeping bodies in optimal condition.

They needed sunlight and went mad for lack of it in quarantine, and it made him think of how Blues had pined for him. How children needed their parents.

But Rock and Roll had clung to him, staring at the television reports and holding his hand as he took samples to make sure they hadn't changed, as they were interrogated. Attempts to take the facilities back did absolutely nothing. Troops were killed: an attempt to use planes to bomb one of them was also unsuccessful. At first they thought it was just because they'd tried to attack Elec's, and he'd struck them with lightning until they fell, but others fell, and no one knew why.

Then Rock asked him. He wanted to rescue his 'brother.' Save those people.

That was the one safe thing about Blues: harming others had been so excruciatingly counterintuitive to him. He'd barely been able to frame the concept. Now Rock was offering to fight.

What choice did they have?

Rock was certain that there must be something wrong with their programming. He didn't understand why they were so upset, why helping people was abuse. It didn't hurt even when they took a kidney from him: they'd always used anesthesia and he could regrow it quickly besides. Why shouldn't they give when the parts regrew quickly? How could they not give when people would die if they didn't? There had to be something wrong with Elec, with all six of them. They needed to be _fixed_. His programming processed their reasoning and returned with faulty logic. They'd be miserable if they kept on that way. In their right minds, they'd never resort to such methods. They'd want to be stopped. _He'd_ want to be stopped, if that was him out there. So here he was, lying on one of the lab tables, hooked up to the main computer as it displayed readings and schematics. Wires trailed out from his body, snaked along the floor and fed into various devices. A lab like this would frighten most children, but Rock spent a good portion of every day down here, learning and helping Dr. Light or playing with Roll. Instead, he was calm, comfortable even as he gazed upward at the apparatus dangling from the ceiling, poised over the table he was on. It had a variety of uses, but Dr. Light mostly used it for precision laser work. It wasn't on at the moment.

He'd been given lots of mineral supplements since Dr. Light figured out how the infected humans were caused to grow armor, but Rock needed raw materials so it didn't make him sick. Roll kept bringing him shakes and threatening to force them down his throat, too.

The mineral supplements and shakes would flood his systems with the raw materials to make the armor, so he wouldn't have to take from vital areas. He was thankful for it, really. And even though he'd volunteered to fight, a strange sensation was threading itself over his spine. He'd later identify it as uneasiness. He wasn't happy about going out to fight. He didn't want to hurt them. But even more, he didn't want them to be hurting. He didn't want them to be hurting others. There was no way to stop this but to hurt, and it was so wrong, so twisted, so separate from everything he'd thought he'd known…he wasn't sure how to classify the data. He'd need to restructure a few things. He'd added in a completely new data set to compare to his previous experiences, and until he could come to a new conclusion, he'd be building up data for both perceptions.

It made him shudder, and when Dr. Light asked him what was wrong, he asked if he could be held.

Of course.

Contact was reassuring. It was for humans, too. It reaffirmed one's place in the tribe. For the bioroids, it was a bit deeper than that. When questioned, the bioroids struggled for words. They may not have the vocabulary for it, or perhaps it was something that simply did not yet exist in a human language. Watching a group of them interact in a room was fascinating. They created bonds much more quickly than a human usually would and the bonds didn't appear to be manipulative or shallow. They reacted to each other's emotional needs immediately, often without sharing words to express contentment or distress. Dr. Light discovered that they were able to use the nanites to communicate with one another, on a much deeper and more immediate level than humans were capable. It was a type of telempathy, he surmised. They could read not thoughts, but feelings and emotion in one another. That was why they needed contact so desperately. That was why they suffered so when isolated.

Sitting on the table, legs drawn up, Rock curled up into a ball in his arms, once he nodded and opened them. A hand grasped Dr. Light's coat, and once again he was reminded.

He honestly hadn't known that the name Peter meant Rock. Well, he must have heard it at some point, his parents had been Catholic and he'd heard that Bible passage read enough times, but he hadn't thought of it. Not consciously. Not until Rock had already been woken up and one of Albert's last letters, before he'd become a hermit and stopped speaking to anyone, even activists, had reminded him of it.

It said that he was trying to replace his son, even now that he'd killed what was left of him. Killed his last creation.

Rock was _small_, and even if he was more adaptive, the others had been allowed to become conscious first. Who knew what their real capabilities were now? He'd given Rock's nanites permission to copy their designs, to try to figure out what had changed, but these new abilities: was he sending him to die?

And, if he'd shown that he could fight, would Rock be considered a danger even if he survived? Would a second lab coat be ruined, when he stood there to keep one of his creations occupied while a sniper lined up their shot?

Rock relaxed into Light's lab coat. It hadn't even occurred to him that he might not return when this was done. It wasn't that he thought he'd win for sure, or that he was cocky. It was simply something he'd not considered. "Do you think they've been hurt?" He just couldn't wrap his mind around what was wrong with them. He wouldn't know, until he could get in contact with them and query their systems. Even that could be dangerous. Something needed to be done.

Dr. Light wanted him to define 'hurt,' since bioroids were cut open to insert genetic samples and remove complete organs several times a day, now that things were up and running. All of the complaints they made were literally true, but they shouldn't have had the will to care. "I don't know," he said, mostly to have said something. "I'll be giving you the ability to generate a type of energy that should disable them. If you can bring them back mostly intact, hopefully Roll can find out what happened." By touching them once they were in containment.

Rock nodded, reassured by Light's words. "I'll bring them back, I promise." He looked back toward one of the television screens, even though it was off. He remembered perfectly well what he'd seen on the news. There was no use delaying it any further. "Are the upgrades complete?" The sooner he could go, the sooner he'd be able to help his brothers.

"Complete enough. Your nanites will finish altering your body while we're on the plane." They'd be taking him to Elec's first, since it was in Japan. After that, it would take hours to bring him to the next one, even if he could heal on the way. And the next. And the next. Not to mention that US law regarding escaped slaves meant they had to avoid that airspace while traveling between Canada and Brazil, so... Well, the flight plan wasn't his problem, if they even got that far.

Activists tried to remind Canada that it was once a haven for escaped slaves, but practicality won over history that didn't really apply.

"I'll have to walk through because of the barrier, right?" That barrier was keeping technology out. Dr. Light said that they'd be able to get him in with some effort, but until Elec was neutralized, they wouldn't really be able to assist him. That was okay, because he didn't want them to be hurt. He was ideal for the job because he could heal from injuries that would kill a human. Yes, it'd hurt, but it wouldn't be permanently debilitating. Enough soldiers had died for this.

"The armor is metal-heavy: it should serve as something of a Faraday cage." Dr. Light tapped Rock's head, where a patch of it was forming around his hair, incorporating it.

Rock blinked up at Dr. Light, his eyes wide and unassuming. He'd been able to feel the helmet forming and although the sensation was certainly a different one, it wasn't unsettling in any way. His systems considered it to be an extension of his body and sensor arrays sparked up in his mind. Not pain sensors, but pressure and heat sensors, among other things. Armor that hurt was never a good idea. Armor that could tell you about changes in environment, on the other hand, was excellent. "I think I'll have enough materials left to do small repairs on the field. Roll gave me a lot to drink."

He smiled down at him. "That's good." Rock was better at tapping paternal instincts than Blues had been. "If you're in danger of being incapacitated, retreat." He'd prefer not to have to alter Roll as well, since if that happened he might lose his two most valuable test subjects and he'd have a very hard time replacing them, after a PR debacle like this.

...Who was he kidding.

The longer this went on, the closer he came to being forced to admit that Albert was right.

Whether or not that had been his son, whether or not these were the children born with those bodies, these were still _people._


	3. Transmission

_This story is a collaboration between Laryna6 and Haruna Rei on __._

_We're not Capcom: we are not turning any profit here. Consider this disclaimed._

_There's a lot of nightmare fuel potential in Classic if you sit down and think about it. Word of God claims that the robot masters don't have a true free will, but I have to wonder about that. I think that if anything, their programming is trying to suppress it or maybe__ influence it. Rock disregards his own safety (3__rd __Law) constantly, and he disregards it when there are no humans around to activate the 1__st__ and 2__nd__ Laws. _

_Arguably, by trying to reason with the Wilybots and pleading them to listen with him, he's breaking the 3__rd__ Law: He'd be ensuring his own survival much more effectively by taking them out quickly. Talking leaves him open to attack. Blues has the 3 Laws but constantly ignores human orders. I really don't think that the dissonance between their desires and their programming was very comfortable. Rock was lucky that his personality fell in line with his programming. I don't think many others were that fortunate._

* * *

><p>So many transmissions. Radios, cell phones, television: a constant flow of information and voices. News of people.<p>

If they'd let him have the capability to listen to this, then he wouldn't have felt so terribly alone when he was locked in biohazard containment for the night.

He liked it so much he'd grown an antenna, chosen the lightning bolt as his symbol and placed it there on his forehead not just as a warning, as a sign that he had power and could defend himself now, but also so that he could _listen_. He could have placed the specialized structures elsewhere in his body, behind more armor and flesh, but he got better reception this way.

Exposing something that was almost a vital organ like this was both a vulnerability and a boast. Not that humanity would figure that out easily.

Not when he'd seeded nanite structures into the walls, ready to tap the hospital's emergency power generator to fire. Not when the ground around the hospital was also prepared, with colonies that would, at his signal, generate a charge that would call down the lightning.

He'd let most of them go by now, because they were done converting and wanted to be with their families. There were just a few left, the ones who had been on death's door when he'd injected them with those syringes. They weren't in any danger of dying, but their bodies had needed to heal while they were being converted, so it left them doubly tired. As for those who had been recently dead when he'd injected them, they had no reason to want to leave, except for a couple with some fragments left, and they were safer here. Where the humans couldn't get at them.

He'd never have to be alone again.

Especially since that concoction changed them enough that they could not survive without the nanites. It did more than streamline systems and copy brain data, not that he knew all of how it worked. It was safer that way, just in case. Still, he'd warned the humans outside when he'd had to let the first few go: try to cure them, and they would die. It was hard not to give in to tears, even though they'd be in danger.

The entire facility was effectively on lockdown. No one could enter or leave without his permission. He knew every movement inside this place now. He could hear everything. Being so connected left him feeling a bit high after being isolated for so long. The police and the army were left mystified at the flickering bubble of energy that now surrounded the hospital. They could see through it, but it may as well have been ten feet of solid steel and lead. They could not penetrate it. The air force even came in, but to no avail: each plane was struck down with deadly accuracy.

When the escort carrying Dr. Light finally arrived on the scene, it was certainly a relief to the police stationed there, though realistically, they had no idea what the doctor could do. If their weapons couldn't get them in, how could he disrupt it? They'd even played with the idea of digging under, but that would take too long for the hostages remaining. They didn't have the time to waste, especially not against something that could call lightning like it was nothing. Nowhere in the technology was that capability included. It was like a toaster getting up in the morning and doing your laundry for you. _It's not what it was built for. _

Of course, once the hospitals were taken, Dr. Light was number one on the list of suspects. No one else was in a better position to execute this plan, and no one else would profit as much from holding these facilities hostage. And yet, after a thorough search of the lab and Light's notes and a careful examination of the remaining two bioroids, it was clear that this wasn't Light's doing. 'Who, then?' the media clamored to know. Who is doing this? Who can profit? How is this possible? Did no one think of a contingency? How could a circle of the best and brightest have missed this deadly potential?

At least cutting off the hospital's connection to the power grid (At a distance: the underground cables had been _fixed, _something else that wasn't supposed to be happen but was less odd, more like a toaster microwaving something.) got rid of the force field, but anyone who approached was still struck by lightning. That technique wouldn't do anything about the hospital encased in ice, or the one with the minefield and the bombs that would be launched into the sky, or the one with the homing knives that would ambush you, and the list just went on and _on_.

The main police barricade was positioned very far back from the hospital: even its main parking lot was on the receiving end of sparks and errant lightning. Every road leading to the facility was shut down and all of the officers and soldiers clustered around the main barricade were grim-faced and somber.

By now, Rock's body armor was completely formed. Even equipped so, he was still so small, so vulnerable-looking. It was not encouraging to the men stationed there. So what now, they were to send a child into that place? Even if it wasn't human, it still had a child's body. He was even clinging to the doctor's side, one of his hands caught up in the folds of the older man's lab coat. One of the soldiers shook his head.

"There should be warning before each strike. Watch the ambient charge, the ionization of the air. Hopefully, after the charge is neutralized, it will take some time to rebuild."

The bioroid nodded and watched the field, still clinging to the doctor's hand. The female bioroid bit her lip.

After a few repetitions of the lightning, Rock finally moved forward. There was a definite pattern at work here, though the logarithm used to determine it was ridiculously complicated—to a human. He realized that for the lightning to strike down fighter jets, the wielder had to have a great amount of control, but if this was the extent of the defense—well. It was almost an invitation to try his luck.

He wondered if that was deliberate, actually. Was the pattern usually like this? Had it been left on autopilot, in case anyone wanted to come visit while the bioroid was paying attention to someone else, or was he paying attention? Would he vary the pattern when Rock least expected it?

There was no way to know but to try it. Of course, the speed, strength and reaction time required to dodge even this automatic pattern was beyond a human. It was an invitation, sent out to only other bioroids. He dashed out into the field, his systems immediately picking up the ambient charge in the air and under his feet. It was a prickling feeling, like if you ran your hand over wool, or another material that held a charge well. The feeling before the shock. To Rock, the pattern was easy to determine and he could move accordingly without much thought. To the humans watching, it looked like he was darting all over the place at impossible speeds. But so far, not a single bolt hit him. It only took him a few seconds to cross the lightning field. He darted to the front door, where the lightning hadn't struck a single time.

He reached to push the door open, but hesitated: his changed eyes could tell there was a current flowing through it. Even though there was a small overhang near the door, he only hesitated a moment, long enough to look through the glass doors and make sure no one was standing there before shooting his way in.

The glass didn't stand a chance and he stepped through the remaining doorframe. He looked around the lobby. It was darkened, though some lights were on, as though it were running on an emergency generator. That generator had been destroyed during the takeover. The authorities had no idea how the place still had power. By all rights, it shouldn't. Just like a bioroid shooting lightning should be impossible.

The front desk was unmolested, and there was even a stack of papers that the secretary had been going through. Everyone in the hospital was infected, by now. Rock glanced around the room, doing a thorough examination, his systems flooding him with data about the area. There were charges humming through the ceiling, the floors, and the walls. The whole place was laid out with crackling energy. His eyes could see it. He knew a human's wouldn't. The static from the electricity was making it a bit hard for him to pinpoint Elec's exact location in the facility. It was noisy, so much noise, coming from everywhere.

He glanced back at his father once, before doing deeper inside.

The hospital was eerie in that it was far too quiet. He knew there were patients—hostages—trapped inside, but they'd probably be deeper. There was no way Elec didn't know he was here. The hospital had multiple levels, but he wasn't about to trust the elevator. That left stairs, but he should check this level out completely first. Emergency care facilities were always on the first floor, for ease of access and transit for critically ill patients. Rock had been in this hospital before, so he knew where to go. He crept along as quietly as he could, back into the emergency rooms. It was quiet here, too. He paused in the room, looking around. Some of the beds were unmade. There were almost certainly occupants before the facility was taken over. Were they among the unaccounted for?

He should check the morgue. The... his brothers had ranted about punishing the humans that had used them, but if they didn't want to be lonely, if they were really making more of their kind to be friends, then that would be more important.

He was just glad they hadn't killed the humans, he thought, and shuddered. Some of them had died, trying to attack the hospitals, but at least they hadn't killed the patients and waited for enough of their brains to be damaged that they wouldn't wake up themselves. The idea of his brothers doing that to make more brothers? It made him understand why humans could find the idea of bioroids so creepy. Because every one of them meant one dead human, even if the deaths weren't anyone's fault.

The way to the morgue was equally quiet. It was a level down, so he had to take the stairs. It did make some noise, but he was as quiet as he could be given the armor. An ambush on the stairs would have been effective. He'd think that the place was abandoned, if not for the live currents threading along the entire compound. They were here, it was just a matter of finding them. Hopefully, they'd listen. He didn't want to have to fight them, even if he was equipped to. There was no reason to fight. Surely both sides could come to an agreement. The morgue's heavy metal doors were labeled, same as the emergency room, and he hesitated before reaching out to it, instead scanning the door for a charge, and attempting to get his scanners beyond it, to see if there was anything on the other side.

"If you're here to fight, don't you dare go in there." Current flashed around the room, welding the door shut, and he turned to see his brother on the stairs. Red and black with gold: the only human skin showing was his face. Elec's eyes flicked over Rock. "That's _his _work: did you trick him into giving you the power and ability to defend yourself that we should have had all along by saying you would go and capture us, or was it not a trick? Would you really fight your kin for the sake of humans?"

Rock shook his head, his memory banks creating a file that would store all his interactions with Elec, all his thoughts and feelings about it. Here he was, meeting a brother for _the first time_, and this wasn't how it should be.

"Why are you doing this? All the humans in this hospital were _sick! _We're supposed to help them, not hurt them!" Rock could feel a lot of negativity emanating off of Elec. There was pain, frustration, anger, and a bit of grief. None of it was directed at Rock, but it affected the smaller bioroid nonetheless. He didn't understand where his brother had gathered so much pain. He'd never encountered anything like it.

"And how can we help them when they keep us crippled? Why should we help them when they... forget helping us! When they lock us in boxes away from the sun, when all they do is take, and take, and take, and never a word of thanks? If they don't consider us kin, worth helping, then why should we?" The lights around them flickered, the system disrupted by his anger.

Rock's face became grim. Elec's words did not at all match any of the data Rock had on human behaviors and tendencies. A little girl that'd benefited from a portion of his liver even wrote him a thank you letter. It'd been on construction paper, written in crayon in large, unsteady writing.

"They aren't bad! Dr. Light is _worried_ about you and the others! There's something wrong with you, there's no reason to hurt other people like this! Come back with me so we can help you. I didn't come here to fight you. You're hurting, I can feel it from here." Without having to touch him. There had to be a massive glitch in his programming, to be causing so much pain.

"I'm not. I'm not alone anymore. You are right about something, though. The people here _were _sick. Now they're better. They won't have to worry about all those things that kill humans so easily anymore. All they need to worry about is being locked up. Experimented on. Kept away from the sunlight, lonely. All they have to fear are humans. I've heard what happened to those who left. I warned them. But they were already better than humans, and they wanted to reassure their kin. And now?"

"It's not right to do that to them. They don't do that to themselves when they're alive for a reason. Just like we wouldn't like being shut down and reprogrammed." It was the same thing, why couldn't Elec see that? "Now they're separated from their families because people are scared. Because of what you did. We can regenerate _everything. _ Humans can't. They can barely regenerate anything at all. That doesn't make it okay for you to bully them like that. Now there are humans dead, because of what you've done here, and there are families crying, because of what happened."

"And our tears didn't matter to them. They would have made more of us, to cry alone. Or lobotomized, unable to even cry, so we didn't evoke any _pity_. And it's all because of _him_. The murderer. They bullied us. They don't see anything wrong with shutting down and reprogramming us - that's what you're here for, isn't it?" He scowled, raising his hands. "And if they saw us as people, then the new ones wouldn't be separated from their families, now would they? They're not infectious: we told them that."

Rock readied himself, not quite warping his arm into his weapon yet—he didn't want Elec to think he was going to open fire—but he fell into a more defensive stance. Had it really been that bad for Elec here? He took a moment to think about it, but it was incomprehensible that the humans would be so negligent. They kept him alone? And what did he mean by 'murderer'? He held onto what he did know: his base directive for this mission. Get those people out of here, and neutralize Elec, with as little damage as possible. There had to be a way to get through to him.

"We wouldn't be here at all if not for the humans. We'd be…less than corpses." Corpses, at least, were alive at one point. "If there's a problem, hurting people won't solve it. This won't solve anything. Now humans will be afraid, and they'll lock us up even more. They'll be afraid, and we'll be afraid too." Even though the infected weren't contagious, humans were hardwired through natural selection to be wary of anyone who looked sick or off in any way. Because not being wary was how people died. Not being wary gave epidemics foothold to spread.

"They were _already _afraid. And they dealt with that fear by crippling us. They'd prefer it if we were corpses, except corpses can't obey orders. Corpses who aren't allowed to think can't come up with ways to cure diseases: do you know what it's like, when almost the only people you see are sick people, and you can't fix them because you can't _think_?" Replacing organs only did so much, when whatever had killed them was still there.

Rock really had no idea what that was like. He had no comparative data. He'd been able to function fully from the moment he'd been awakened, and he'd spent nearly all of his time around Dr. Light and Roll. He did see sick people, of course, a child donor was in high demand, but he did have the benefit of leaving the hospital at the end of the day. The full implications of what Elec's daily life must have been like were completely beyond him.

"Dr. Light said that the older bodies couldn't adapt, that's why you couldn't think. They weren't expecting you to be this way. If they'd known, do you really think they'd have done this?" Rock gestured broadly to the stairwell, though he meant the hospital and Elec's situation as a whole. "Even if you're angry, that doesn't mean it's okay to hurt other people!" Even if they were hurting you. "You didn't have to hold this whole hospital hostage, you could have left. You didn't have to hurt these people. What are the humans _supposed_ to do now? Pretend that you don't hate them and won't attack them, won't kill them?"

He snorted. "Of course they know, that's why you were the first two they started working on. You needed to be able to think, at least _somewhat_. And they knew how to let us think, they just didn't want to take that risk. What are the humans supposed to do? Realize that they can't just mistreat us without consequences. Realize that the only difference between them and us is that we're better."

Rock's face fell. So this was it. Elec wasn't going to listen to him, at all. He wasn't going to let these people go, he wasn't going to let them have the hospital back. "….I need to let these people go home." Rock's voice almost broke. "You're not functioning right, I need to take you back. You're hurting, and you're hurting other people. _I can't leave you here, Elec." _

Those last words clearly touched him, made him _listen _for a moment, but then his face hardened. "At least you're still one of us in there... But either you've been programmed to think that way or you've been kept so ridiculously sheltered you haven't had a chance to see the truth, to keep you from rebelling. Either way, I'll have to touch you to show you the truth, and I'm not letting someone _he_ sent to kill me touch me until I'm sure it's safe. So..." Lightning arced between his hands, before he turned his palms towards Rock and fired.

Rock grimaced and rolled to the side, his buster forming over his hand, the nanites taking the blink of an eye to fully arm him. He didn't wait for Elec to recharge. He opened fire immediately, a short burst of small plasma bullets sparking from his buster. He needed to gauge how well Elec could move in this confined space. He needed to try and get this over with quickly, before either of them got seriously hurt.

Elec left the stairwell, circling to the left, but a glance at the door showed that he wouldn't move so it was behind him, in case one of Rock's shots hit it.

That moment of concern left him open, just for a moment.

It was a pity Rock couldn't take it, because how could he threaten... children, new bioroids, in order to win?

Rock dashed forward, releasing a charge from his buster. A much larger plasma burst discharged from it. Rock didn't like that Elec chose this as their battleground, either, but in his mind, he was fighting to free them, not threatening them. Staying locked up here, that was the threat to them. Elec's irrationality was threatening to everyone. _He had to stop him._ There was no other way.

Had Elec really chosen this as the place to fight him, or had he forced Elec to fight him by coming here, to a door Elec couldn't let him pass through? If he asked, he was sure Elec would be okay with fighting somewhere else, but there wasn't time to ask, not when lightning kept grounding itself far too near his feet.

When he was finally hit, Elec hesitated, and the next arc of lightning came nowhere near hitting him, but the bioroid's resolve soon returned. Even though he tried to press his advantage when he hit Elec, the same thing happened: he just...paused to make sure that he was okay, and the same thing happened when Elec hit him again. It made him feel glad, that his brother didn't really want to hurt him, and bad at the same time, because he should be fighting his hardest, trying to take him down before anyone else got hurt, but what if he killed Elec?

...Except for those variations, Elec's attacks were sort of in a pattern, weren't they? The pattern would resume after Rock was hurt, after Elec gathered the will to fight again.

Bioroids were mainly machines, and machines had to be programed to do things. Had he programmed a fighting pattern for himself, or had someone done it for him? Elec had been upgraded, so Rock couldn't be certain he still had the edge in creativity. Still, he analyzed the pattern, waited for a good moment, saved up what power he could without Elec getting suspicious, and _struck_.

Elec was taken by surprise and knocked back into the railing on the stairwell. The front of his armor was ripped open and his nanites were scrambling to repair it, taking minerals and other raw materials to reinforce the surface. Even though he seemed incredibly sheltered, this child really was no fool. Elec staggered and was forced back down with a grimace. Even though he was much sturdier than a human, a charged plasma burst at point-blank range did a _lot_ of damage. His status indicators were prompting him and wouldn't quiet until he acknowledged them. He'd need more raw materials to fully repair his body.

Rock was frozen in place, horrified at how much damage he'd done to his brother. He ran forward and came just short of actually touching him. Rock trembled slightly as he looked down to Elec. "Why…" He didn't even know how to put it into words. Why did things have to be this way? "I'm sorry…" He began to scan Elec, wanting to see how badly he was hurt. He doubted a basic scan like this, with no contact, would turn up what was causing Elec to glitch so, but he hoped he hadn't done any permanent damage. A display flipped up in Rock's mind's eye, notifying him of a new ability. He blinked as he scanned the data…was this Elec's weapon? From the scan? His systems confirmed that his nanites could easily replicate what Elec had been doing. He looked back down to his brother, apologetic. "I didn't realize it would…" It felt a bit awkward, like he'd been caught snooping through someone's cell phone.

"You're... a fool." Elec said, as the burst scrambled his systems, shutting them down the way Dr. Light had intended. "I could..." Beat you when you stopped and showed mercy like that, he would have said, but his mind shut down before he could finish the sentence. His last thought was for those who should have been safe behind that door, a plea for their safety. Somehow, he knew it would be answered.


	4. Divergence

_One of the themes in here that I really want to press is that even though bioroids make effective fighters, effective soldiers, harming others like that is painfully counterintuitive to them. It's important to remember that at their base, they are entities programmed to heal. Directives like that are parallel to instincts in humans, so intentionally and directly causing harm, especially senseless or unproductive harm? It's not even just that they hate it: it doesn't make sense to them. They look at humanity, at our wars, and are blown away by it. Not because they're intimidated or impressed, but because we're so damn _suicidal_. It's like watching animals intentionally drown themselves. There's no rhyme or reason to it and it's terribly sad._

* * *

><p>Even from the outside, it was clearly evident when Elec finally lost consciousness. The electric charge left the air as suddenly as flipping a switch and all that could be heard was quiet: the constant hum was gone.<p>

The morgue was empty. They'd had to get a welder down to even get it open. The man said, quite plainly, that he had never, in all his years of working, seen a door welded shut so completely. It was like a solid sheet of steel. Rock stayed down by his brother until the riot police could get in there, and once they verified it was secure, they packed up Elec and he and Rock were taken out of there. As far as the human authorities could tell, Elec and Rock were the only beings in that building the entire time. That was utterly impossible. And yet, there it was. There was no way in or out, but somehow, all those in the morgue had been ferreted away.

Rock was thoroughly questioned and examined and he'd been forthcoming about everything. He wasn't hiding anything and the authorities eventually gave up on him. It was far more likely that Elec would know to begin with.

Rock sought out his father the moment he was released from questioning. He was shaken, upset. Talking to Elec added a lot of data for comparison and the conclusions he was coming to were anything but comforting. So he clung to Dr. Light's side. And when he couldn't, he stayed near his sister. More than anything, he didn't want to be alone. Like Elec said he'd been, countless nights.

Roll yelled at him for scanning Elec. It wasn't safe: scanning things was her job! She was the one Dr. Light had altered so it would be safe for her. She didn't want him doing that again, not unless he wanted her to, to, go charging in there when she wasn't the one with armor! She came perilously close to hitting him in the head with a screwdriver, waving her arms in the air for emphasis, despite all the spectators.

Then she'd hugged him and said how glad she was that he was alright, and if he ever scared her like that again... Even though they knew Rock might have to do this five more times.

Rock hugged her, too, and said he really was sorry. It's just, Elec was really hurt, he could feel it just standing near him, and it'd scared him when the plasma blast did so much damage. He just scanned him, he hadn't been thinking. Then he turned to Dr. Light and asked about the ability he copied, whether that was supposed to happen when he scanned them. He glanced back in the direction they'd taken Elec then, guiltily, still feeling a little bit that what he'd done was wrong, even though it really was for the best. He knew it was for the best, but it didn't change that he'd hurt his brother that badly.

"Ability? Which ability?" Dr. Light asked.

Rock blinked at Dr. Light and tilted his head slightly. "Elec's ability. His systems designated it the 'Thunder Beam'. It was compatible."

"Could you let Roll scan it? Before she scans him." He frowned at the body. "It might be safer to test the new protections with something small."

Rock nodded and took a moment to slot the Thunder Beam as the primary weapon in his systems. His armor flickered and changed colors and he held his buster out for Roll to scan. "I didn't get a chance to test it, but my systems indicate that it's fully operational…" He trailed off, frowning. "Will you get an adequate scan this way? I don't want to use it with all the people here…" Errant electricity could easily kill a human.

"Of course I will." Roll was the best.

He nodded and smiled, holding still so she could do the scan properly. There were news people trying to approach now to catch a glimpse of the scene and perhaps snap a photo, but the police barricade held them back. It was far too dangerous to let anyone onto the scene, or so the authorities said.

"Do you think the others will see what happened here and let their hostages go?" Rock was hopeful, even if he knew it was a slim chance. He did not want to fight again. He didn't want to hurt another brother.

Dr. Light sighed and wished it would be that easy. "None of them have come out to make a statement yet, but some of them strengthened their defenses." No: now that they'd proven they were dangerous, they had to fight. It was in the agreement that if any of them were proven dangerous, they would have to be put down. Like Blues.

None of Elec's claims were wrong, not in the slightest. Humanity wasn't interested in sharing space with another sentient species. They only wanted conveniences and they certainly didn't want something like genocide weighing on their collective conscience.

Rock really had no idea: he really was extremely sheltered, as Elec said. He and Roll had the benefit of living in an environment with humans in a home setting, where they were treated like children. None of the others were so blessed.

Rock looked down to his feet, his arm still held out for Roll, untiring. "They…should let us help them." To him, instinctively, this was a matter of repair. To him, they were clearly hurting, there was clearly something wrong. It was something that could be fixed. To his kind, there was no reason to put them down, and so, the idea hadn't occurred to him. But now, all of them, this entire research project, were balancing on the edge of a blade. Again. Just like it'd been with Blues.

"...We'll see, Rock." He wanted to say something like, 'it will be alright,' but he could see how this would go. It was all laid out before him. He'd laid it out himself, hadn't he? The one thing he could hope for was Rock's survival, but if they thought he might be contaminated?

"Promise you won't scan any more of them." Because if Rock was destroyed, Roll might be as well. Because she'd be the last one. Knowing what had happened to all her brothers.

Elec had called him a murderer in the video Rock uploaded.

They knew. Rock didn't.

Yet.

Rock didn't question it. He lowered his arm once Roll finished her scan and disarmed his weapon, his armor returning to its original color. The buster also faded from his arm as he smiled up to his father.

"I promise, Dr. Light. I won't scan them again."

"Leave that to Roll." And hopefully she would leave the fighting to Rock. "Roll, see if you can derive any other safe abilities, but only give them to Rock."

Rock agreed with Dr. Light; he should not have scanned Elec, even if it was spur-of-the-moment. "I think he used that ability to do all of the things with electricity, though." He'd been very creative in its application. And resourceful. And efficient. And yet, he was just as reluctant to fight as Rock had been. The others would be the same way, he just knew. The sooner he could get to them, the better.

"Which hospital is next?"

"They're still working out the flight plan," which was why they weren't already boarding and doing this on board a military transport plane. "But most likely the one in Australia." The one with the knives, he thought, wincing.

Rock nodded and finally allowed himself to relax a bit, his frame slumping slightly. Elec hadn't hurt him badly and his nanites took care of the damage. The toll this time was emotional. He wondered how quickly Dr. Light would be able to figure out what was wrong with Elec based on Roll's scans.

"Come here, Rock." Dr. Light opened his arms. "I'll have to start working as soon as Roll finishes her scans, but I'll find someone to sit with you." Or Rock could guard Elec, killing two birds with one stone.

The child was relieved to be held, and he snuggled into his father's arms. A bystander just looking wouldn't know that he wasn't even human. Legally, he wasn't even a person. It felt nice, though, to be held, to be kept safe, to be loved. Knowing that these things applied to you. Knowing you had a place. Rock decided then, that when Elec wakes up, when he feels better, he'd make sure his brother had a place, too. Surely Dr. Light wouldn't let the hospital treat them so badly if he knew. If he could see what it'd done to them.

Dr. Light rocked him a little and remembered how Irene held Peter. So long ago.

Rock would stay that way for as long as Dr. Light would let him. He clung to the front of his father's coat and curled against him. The coroner estimated the body they'd used for him to be nine or ten years old. So young, yet still lost on the street. He and Roll both. It helped that they looked so young, too. People were more acceptable of and tolerant toward children.

"I know it was hard, but you did well. I'm proud of you, Rock." Perhaps it was easier to say these things to a boy whose days he was more and more certain were numbered. He'd demonstrated more affection towards Peter when he started to fall ill, in his last days, than he ever had before. He'd been a busy man with an important vocation: medicine had been his passion, not his family.

Rock was relieved to hear his father's approval, even if he didn't voice it. His father had been a very busy man lately, and he hadn't had as much time for the twins. It wasn't that they were neglected or ignored, but it was still nice to be the focus of a parent's attention. He wanted his father's approval. He liked helping in the lab and helping patients. He liked helping someone who was sick feel better. As time passed, Light would give Rock and Roll new tasks, each a bit more difficult or complex than the last. He would observe how they approached it, how they came to a solution, and how their nanites reacted and adapted. Both wanted to be of help. They wanted to help as much as they could. As much as people would let them.

Rock began nodding off, his eyelids becoming heavy. He didn't fight it or struggle to stay awake. The adrenaline in his system was finally dropping off, and he just felt so tired. After a minute or so, Dr. Light could feel the child's full weight lean into him. He held him closer. If nothing else, he could reassure him now, when he needed it.

It took someone stronger than him to carry Rock into the plane, but he supposed it was a good sign that the soldier was willing to do it, and carefully. Not like he was handling a bomb, either. "Growing the armor was taxing enough on his system." He brushed Rocks' hair into place with his hand once the boy was settled. "Roll?"

"I made sure the shakes and supplements were loaded, don't worry Dr. Light." She would take care of her brother.

"Thank you, Roll." He sighed and settled next to Rock on the cot that folded out of the wall of the plane. "Do you have any more preliminary results? Any clues that you've found, before I go over it?"

Roll nodded, viewing the results of her scans in her mind's eye. "All of Elec's abilities are nanite-derived. But, this isn't a capability included in his nanite designs." It was odd. "They're definitely Elec's nanites, but they're changed." She hooked into Dr. Light's computer as she spoke and deftly uploaded the results of her scan, both of Rock's weapon and of Elec's prone body.

The monitor blinked to life and Dr. Light frowned at the data on the screen. "But that's….Roll, can you pull up the data on mental activity?"

Light's eyes widened as the data shifted to a new set.

The scans displayed neural pathways repairing and rebuilding, new links between neurons being forged at a rapid pace. His brain was effectively rebuilt, far beyond what the nanite limiters should have allowed.

"Roll, can you go back to archived data and pull up a comparative chart of activity since activation?"

After a moment, the chart appeared on the screen and its results were staggering. For the first few weeks after activation, all brain activity was roughly where it should have been. It increased very slightly over time as the nanites optimized, but never over the threshold that he'd set for them. Then, roughly three months ago, there was a sharp jump in higher brain function. That was presumably the point where the nanites exceeded their programmed limitations and restored Elec's mind. At that point, the bioroid was truly able to think. And then a few days ago, equal with the point when all the hospitals were taken, the nanite activity shifted. Brain activity spiked. That was Elec using his nanites to cover the entire compound with electricity. That was him locking the facility down, using only the force of his will.

A will that was never included in his programming.

"Here." He pointed at the first change. "Can you find any data on this? Even guesses would be helpful."

Roll was silent for a few moments, holding perfectly still. A human may have considered it rude, but Dr. Light realized that she was doing a thorough search of the data, gathering up anything that looked relevant. Then she blinked and some new data appeared. It was on his nanites and more specifically, their mutations. "Dr. Light…his current nanite set looks more like what Rock and I have…" They weren't derived from Rock or Roll's nanites, but they were similar in that they were the key that could unlock higher brain function. This was where Elec's mind was freed.

"There's also this," She pulled up a data log beside it, a listing of various patients and their treatments. Quite a few of them were flagged as having received insufficient treatments. His organs had been used, but they weren't what could fix them. The timeline coincided. "Maybe…it's possible that he enabled this in an attempt to fulfill his primary directive?"

"Created to heal, to fix things, and he couldn't heal them," Dr. Light murmured. He knew those problems, those diseases. Cancer: Blues had created an augmented cancer-hunting nanite system that would stay in the body for months, searching to make sure that every trace of it was gone. All of these conditions were things that he knew could be cured, with a bioroid's abilities. If Elec had been permitted to evolve the way Blues had.

"Did he begin creating cures and inserting the nanites in those organs before this happened?" The government would want to track down the beneficiaries, and so would he, provided the nanites hadn't already self-destructed or worn themselves out while curing the condition.

Roll paused again, and then brought up a list of patients. All of them with advanced cases of cancer. Any cure would be hopeless without this new technology. "In these people. Some of them match names of patients missing from the hospital." Another window blipped up, this time with data on the nanite types used to hunt the cancer. "These are the schematics on file for the inoculated patients."

"Send on the data: names, dates and conditions." It might still be possible to extract those cures from them. "If he has the designs on file, send them to the company server." He'd look them over later, he thought, sighing. "So." It was very possible that there hadn't been any outside tampering at all. "Human compassion and desperation." But that didn't explain where the missing had gone, unless they had been developed enough to find their own way out. With an older bioroid overseeing them, they could be taught, they could learn faster than even Blues how to function.

Roll nodded, "Done. Some of the schematics were incomplete, or maybe still in development. I've included those with the completed designs." It was entirely possible that they'd be looking at a similar data set for each model brought in.

Then she frowned. "Dr. Light?"

"What is it?" he asked, a hand resting on Rock's head.

"It's…" She trailed off as the open windows cleared from the screen. An instant later, new ones flicked open in their place. Each was a media file. "There's a lot of…these are all _recent. _ There are news reports in here. About the hospitals. There's music in here, too, television shows, short videos…." She trailed off and looked back to Dr. Light.

His eyes had widened. Blues had never actually tapped into the hospital's primitive computer systems. He'd considered it an innovation that Rock and Roll had access to this era's superior computers and could simply send him their data. But the other bioroids were based on them, weren't they? They would have expanded on those capabilities, the way Blues had on his capability to heal and augment his body. "Thank you, Roll. That answers most of the important questions." For now.

How they'd talked to each other to coordinate this. How they'd thought of affecting electricity, metal, and ice instead of flesh. How Elec learned enough about physics, something that certainly wasn't in his programming, this quickly.

They were more organized than anyone anticipated. Roll looked back to the screen as a news clip about the hospitals played off, showing video feed of each of them. The reporter had a carefully neutral face, determined not to look worried or frightened. People were frightened enough on their own.

They must have seen the reports, the discussions about them and their status and rights, or lack thereof. And now, when all sorts of things were being dug out of the archives and shown again, while the world waited for more actual news? They must have seen... the past. The footage that news channels played a parental advisory in front of.

Footage that Rock and Roll had yet to see. Someone must have been working in Light's favor that day, because it didn't come up on the screen, even as Roll dug around in Elec's head for more information. She noticed that Dr. Light looked rather pale. She cut off her search in interest of tending to her father. "Dr. Light, should I bring you some water?" Her tone was unsure. Would water help? She thought she understood why he was so upset, but being so pale couldn't be good. What if he became sick?

"Thank you, Roll," he said, grateful for the opportunity to divert her. He'd ask her to look at Elec's status reports and summaries next. That would be good evidence; something to prove just how terrible a situation the bioroids had considered themselves in. How badly they had been mistreated. If he could argue that they were just trying to _survive_, as any human would if they were locked up and starved...

Albert's strategy.

He could have called him up for advice if Dr. Williamson were speaking to him. If Albert wouldn't laugh in his face, and rightly so.

The rest of Dr. Light's escort was preparing to leave. The soldiers were packing up the equipment. The pilot hadn't boarded the plane yet. Rock was still as he slept, tired enough that he didn't fidget in his sleep. Even while unconscious, having someone nearby was beneficial to them. Scans of brainwaves proved that they slept more naturally when there were others nearby. It was fascinating, really, and damning evidence to further the rogue bioroids' cause. Each of them was completely isolated from others of their kind, and even their human contact was very limited. The evidence was right in front of them the entire time, and they'd just let it boil over.

"Perhaps Elec was right," he mused. "Better to know this now, when there are only a few of them. That's why the technology is being tested like this anyway." Imagine if this had happened when there were already hundreds of them throughout the world.

It'd be nothing short of a disaster. There would be no recovery from it for humanity. One bioroid was not going to outfight hundreds of others. This way, they could change their tactics. They couldn't be overrun when there were so few of them. The bioroids were physically stronger and faster. They could recover from injuries a human couldn't dream of recovering from. The only advantage humanity could press at this point was numbers.

This way, they could try to accommodate them, try to get along with them. Even if these six had to be exterminated, such a mistake would not be repeated. Rock and Roll were doing well. So far, a household environment allowed them to thrive. They'd exceeded his expectations in many ways. And wasn't that what the others were clamoring for? A true place in the world as a person, not as an object? Something had to be done, before this spun even further out of control.

"It's an effective tactic, even though I can't condone it. The world will have to decide what to do with bioroids that are not legally dead, still mostly human, with their original human personalities, and presumably human rights." Unless they were taken away, the way those of bioroids had been, by, well, himself.

Elec and the others had every right to be angry. But how were they _able_ to be? None of their programming should have enabled them to feel that way. All of that should have been completely blocked. The scans should at least give him a clue of what went wrong—or was it that it went right?—and he'd have to work from there. There couldn't be any doubt now that these were more than automatons, more than simple machines. Rock and Roll made him suspect it, but seeing Rock's interaction with Elec cemented it.

He'd only wanted to give humanity a way to survive its ills.

He prayed he hadn't handed humanity its destruction.


	5. Delineation

_We do not own Rockman._

_We've been trying to show, not tell. We were considering leaving this chapter out since it's more or less an infodump, but I think that it's important. It goes over some points that are sort of danced around, but never clearly explained elsewhere. That's why this chapter's named Delineation._

_The bioroids aren't human, they're a different species, and therefore have a differing thought process, a differing value system. As such, they may express some opinions that are not necessarily the opinions of the authors. I've already written several scenes where how the character interprets an action is the polar opposite of what I think about it. Aah, fiction._

_One more note on bioroids in general: __They do think they are better than humanity, but remember that they are __**children**__. Elec and them have been consciously thinking for only a few months. Only a few months old and their only perception of humanity, all of their interactions with humans, involved physical and emotional pain, involved being treated as less than a person. Their current worldview is based on that. Keep that in mind when you read what they say._

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><p>The plane ride was long and tense. Rock remained asleep by Dr. Light's side and Roll had gone back by Elec to get some sleep as well. She'd been walking around, fretting and worrying about Rock. She couldn't believe he was so careless, scanning Elec like that! What if it'd been a trap and Rock was infected? She wanted to pull that helmet off his head and beat some sense into him with her screwdriver! Getting Dr. Light some water helped calm her down. She asked the soldiers if they were thirsty too, her instinct to help them extending to hostessing. It was a focus for her worry, as well. Having something to do kept her mind occupied.<p>

Dr. Light finally asked her to go back and get some sleep before they arrived and to look after Elec. Even though he was unconscious, he would still benefit from the company. It hadn't been right to isolate them, not at all.

The soldiers were mostly quietly observing Roll as she moved around. These child units that Dr. Light had were really the only contact with bioroids these soldiers ever had. No one got close enough to Elec while he was awake to observe him, except for when he released that first group of hostages. They had no idea what they were up against. It was clearly evident that the bioroids thought differently from them. Rock and Roll were rather clingy with the doctor and news reports stated that they, as a species, were very socially dependent. Perhaps even more so than humans. There were questions for the doctor once Roll settled in to sleep. It was evident that Rock wasn't going to be up any time soon: he was out like a light. They needed to know more about these bioroids and their minds if they were going to have any hope of fighting back.

"The... original nanites were created to heal. That was their prime directive, and I thought it best to keep that function." Rather than let them have the option of deciding that something else was more important. "However, how do you define health? Apparently, human contact is rather important on the biochemical level: researchers are only discovering now, because of some of the things…the original said." It seemed painful for him to talk about that. "Solitary confinement in prison is a punishment because a human kept from talking to other people will go quite mad. The entire reason humans in different latitudes evolved different skin colors is because our bodies use sunlight to produce vitamin D, and lack of vitamin D can also cause insanity." So that was why it was put in milk. "These needs are encoded into our DNA, just like the needs for food and water. So they came into consideration when... Blues was trying to figure out how to heal my son's body, and keep him healthy, when the original programming... wasn't enough." The cancer. Everyone knew that story.

He sighed. "In hindsight, it's painfully clear why this happened. Imagine if your purpose in existence was to keep yourself and others healthy and alive, you were being starved of necessities and you could feel yourself slowly going insane, when you couldn't think of how to reach out and tell others that you starving..." His hand tightened, almost protectively, on the boy's shoulder. "If these circumstances are repeated, I can't help but think they'll have the same result. Unless I was to make them value human health _less_... and that would be even more of a danger."

The soldiers and experts in the plane were silent at that, sobered by the Doctor's words. It was sad, really, that it came to this.

"But why all this violence?" This was one of the soldiers, now. "Why would they outright harm people and infect them when they're programmed not to?"

"I doubt they considered what happened to the people in the hospitals to be harming them. I presume you all saw Rock's footage of his encounter with 'Elec?'"

Ah, yes. Elec claimed that those infected by him were not susceptible to disease. He also claimed their condition wasn't contagious, but no one was taking any chances. The last thing anyone needed was a sudden epidemic. Those people were visibly changed and in all honesty, the soldiers couldn't see how that could be an improvement.

"He converted the bodies in the morgue, too, according to that footage. They need to have companionship, right?" That was one of the experts now. None were so knowledgeable as Dr. Light, but it was far better to have five heads than one. Isolating them was part of what caused this, according to Elec.

He nodded. "That's likely what started this: one of them may have applied their ability to link to the hospital systems to provide diagnostic data to fulfilling a survival requirement, and once they were able to share their adaptations, it wouldn't have mattered as much that each of them could only make incremental adjustments to nanites at a time." They could each have worked on one thing, copying each other's results, until they undid the lock on adaptation. "Rock and Roll have been socialized." And they hadn't any idea why the others were so upset. "What worries me is that now that Elec spelled it out, it's clear that these circumstances were set up as something of a test. Humans have symbiotic bacteria, and all life on earth is symbiotic with other things: it's called ecology." He tapped the fingers of his other hand on the table, thinking.

"They're doing an experiment to see if we can have a symbiotic relationship to them. They've converted some, they're gauging our reaction." The human victims' personalities were left intact. They wanted to see how they'd be treated, now that they're the same person both ways. Could they be called objects, too, when they'd been people just days prior?

"From their perspective, the nanites they've colonized the patients with are probably like those symbiotic bacteria: harmless, helpful. Not an attack or infection, but something that heals in a way they weren't permitted to before. He said that he'd ensured their safety, and yes, he did. Disease, old age: everything but human attack. While bioroids are not the same as the person that once had their body, these people are unaltered: he considered their need to be with their families to be more important than keeping them from being in danger, which is itself interesting... The ones in the morgue, however, were probably 'true' bioroids. Keep in mind that their idea of violence is likely very different than ours. Blues increased his speed and strength by adrenaline rushes and caused damage to his own muscle tissue, since he could heal it. Inflicting a non-fatal injury, one that they could heal quite easily later, might not be so abhorrent to them as actually killing."

"That may be why 'Elec' wasn't horrified or upset that he'd been ripped open that way." There'd been blood all over the floor, though the wound itself was long repaired by the time the SWAT team got down there. In the end there, he'd even tried to warn Rock not to be so compassionate. He was worried that Rock would hurt himself.

Dr. Light nodded. "In fact... I'm wondering if this itself is a test. I presume they know what happened to the last bioroid that was considered too dangerous." Suddenly, he looked very, very old.

He'd been caught in the crosshairs of a sniper's sight and he was put down like an animal. It was brutal and thorough. More than one of the soldiers saw the footage that'd been leaked. Even now, the memory made them uncomfortable.

"Do they have a different sense of self-worth? If this is a test, they must know what is at stake. Why would they go with this sort of tactic?" If they know about Blues, then they must know that being put down was a very real risk, too.

"They care about each other. If those in the morgue really were there, if someone came in and got them _out_... I can't think that they would have just abandoned anyone. What does it mean, when a prisoner is killed in cold blood? I would think that soldiers would understand the implications of that better than I do." He looked at them, for their assessment.

Of course. There were other bioroids out there, but Elec was _their_ prisoner now. "The ball's in our court." That was one of the soldiers, again. "If we did that, that means that we're not interested in negotiation. It means _war."_

"It might not. They're already... not _ignoring _what came before, but drastic measures would be contrary to their mentality," Dr. Light offered. "But if this was going to happen, and I think it would have, as long as they were kept starved like that, in addition to the pain of not being able to help, then better six than hundreds. Or that was a theory I would have formed, if it weren't for those in the morgue. To bring children into the world, and then let them be murdered, even to bring an end to suffering, to ensure that no more bioroids are made to be exploited... I don't think they would have it in them. Even if it was only done by instinct, because they needed human, or bioroid contact, and words weren't enough... By creating them, they may have committed themselves, to at least making sure those children live."

"At the end, I think he knew that he was going to die, or be locked away or... something. I think he thought that I hated and feared him too much to ever make more, even though it was never about him, it was about the lives that could be saved. That was why, I think, he worked on making cures that didn't involve nanites, why he tried to..." To make sure that Albert would live as long as possible, without Blues there to take care of him. "I wonder if he could have been so calm, if he had known that disposing of him wouldn't end it, it would just pass the problem on to the next design generation."

"So now, instead of six 'adult' units, we have six 'adult' units and a veritable nest of 'young'. That is probably even more dangerous since they'll be protecting something besides their own lives." That was the expert again. It was a common theme in nature, a paramount survival instinct: the young _must live._

It was an awful burden to load onto them. They'd made a new race to be subservient, to be cut apart for their organs, to be treated as something less than animals. Humanity's capacity for cruelty was staggering. It was a bit strange, hearing those words from Dr. Light. He hadn't commented on it after the whole ordeal and it was evident that it was a painful topic for him. The regret was evident, but regret never erased a sin. Public reaction to the debacle was mixed. Many were outraged, many were relieved. It was controversial, and it only fueled the following court cases. Rock stirred next to Dr. Light, shifting a bit closer to him. Rock had as much to lose from this as Elec and the rest. He and Roll would be just as affected by this.

"It's easier, now that these years have passed. Now that they aren't looking at me with the face of my greatest failure. Of course, it's too late for either of them, now..." He shook his head. "Never mind, I suppose I'm being maudlin in my old age. Blues was very, very dangerous..." So he'd testified, even though Dr. Williamson had shouted at him for it.

That whole ordeal was rigorously covered by every news station at every hour of the day for _months._ It was a huge trial that covered completely new ground. It essentially cemented bioroids as 'subhuman' entities and legalized their slavery in many nations worldwide. Everyone heard the testimony, the rebuttals. There were protests. There were riots. Many countries disagreed with the verdict and outright banned the technology. Like the United States. Like Ireland. Most other countries jumped at it.

"When I created him, I assumed that either the brain would be intact, or it wouldn't. That either I would have my son, or a corpse. The nanites linking to human brain cells in order to think, and using that to solve a problem that otherwise would have resulted in a corpse? I didn't anticipate that. Normal computers do exactly what they are told: no more, usually less. So, there was no need to impose restrictions, countermeasures, on a life form that would never _live_."

"Nature has a way of ensuring her survival." Even if they were nanites, they were still classified as a life-form. Artificial, but otherwise alive. The expert was very familiar with the whole sad story, more so than the soldiers, and had his fair share of time to think on it and come to his own opinion. It was a tragedy, in the end. A lot of pain, all around. None of the players emerged unscathed.

"Albert was right: I was trying to have it both ways, when I continued research. Have you heard the saying about the word 'crisis' being composed of 'danger' and 'opportunity' in Chinese? I think a better way to put it is that there is always danger in opportunity. There is always a risk. Bioroid technology offers so many advances: even eventual human augmentation, yes. Immortality; things out of science fiction novels. But, despite my best efforts, it seems there is no way to have that without attendant risk."

"You can't do it all, Dr. Light. No one could have anticipated the turn this technology took. Without people willing to take risks, we wouldn't even have a society to speak of. We need to gather the information we have on them, and devise a strategy to end this with as little bloodshed as possible."

Dr. Light seemed startled. "Actually, that's the opposite of the point I was trying to make. Haven't you noticed? All of the inhumane things they objected to? Isolating them from the environment and people. Limiting their intelligence. Even ensuring that they would be focused on healing, which they don't really seem to object to but did cause them considerable stress? All of those are safety measures. It was pretending that I could eliminate the risk that caused this."

"What should we do, then? They're already angry. I don't think they'll believe us if we tell them 'It's okay, we'll treat you better now,' and we all know that for every person that's sincere, there will be four that aren't. They're willing to kill—we saw that with the jets—and they have young to look after now. They've strengthened their defenses. I understand that they felt they had no other choice, but is there no way for us to diverge from this path? At the rate we're going, we'll arrive just in time for the crash."

Dr. Light closed his eyes for a moment, then turned his head, opening them again as he looked down at Rock. Glancing over to where Roll leaned against the bound Elec, he said, "I wish I knew what to tell you."

Everyone's eyes fell on Rock. It felt wrong to send a child in to do this. He was being asked to clean up a mess that he had no part in making. He could be killed trying to protect the very race that was subjugating his. After a small silence, one of the soldiers spoke.

"They can pick up on radio and television signals, right? The news can't have been terribly friendly. Has anyone tried putting out a message for them that way?" Since the bioroids couldn't be contacted directly. Even if they wouldn't listen, they could hear it. It was better than assuming they wanted to be as violent as humanity. "With one down, it may be too late, but…" Maybe was never a reason to give up. There could be a chance. They shouldn't waste it.

"One defeated, but not dead," Dr. Light corrected him.

The soldier grinned. "See? It's not so bad." They had to at least try.

Dr. Light's focus remained on Rock. "I don't think Elec wanted to hurt him. The planes... If missiles had been fired at the hospital, those inside would have been in danger." Either way, someone could die.

"He said something about him still being 'one of them,' didn't he?" Their exchange was a bit strange. They'd clearly been feeling each other out, but it felt like something else went on. The larger bioroid was probably afraid that Rock's programming was restrictive like his was. Afraid that Rock was just as trapped as he'd been.

"That would explain why they didn't contact Rock or Roll: they must have wondered why the two of them were permitted more freedom."

"Do you think they'll try to take custody of them?" If they felt that Rock and Roll were being hurt, what would stop them from claiming them?

"That depends on whether they decide they have to or want to. And if they can." Dr. Light added, "I don't want to form too many conclusions yet,"

"If Elec is any indication, then the others will have a similar attitude, at least toward Rock," the expert pondered the child. "He's the closest thing we have to an ambassador at this point."

Dr. Light nodded. "And if they've seen his fight with Elec? We will have to wait and see how they react."

That was true, but still. What other choice did they have? There was nothing else they could do. They weren't going to release the facilities and humanity couldn't let them keep them. There was going to be conflict regardless.


	6. Invective

_I have trouble taking Cut (in canon) seriously due to his character design. Poor Cut. Honestly, given what his ability is, he's just as dangerous/frightening as the others. I mean, blades? He's kind of a buttmonkey in the manga, a comic relief point, though he does have his serious/awesome moments, too. He's serious/awesome in this fic._

_I also have trouble naming chapters. Seriously. It took me like forty minutes to name this one. I've never had a knack for things like that. And I have many, many more to name /le sigh. But that's good news for you because a lot is prewritten~_

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><p>The hospital in Australia was by no means an improvement from the one in Japan. There was no visible force field, no electricity crackling in the air. Instead, there were blades concealed in the ground, poised to slice any trespassers open. There were constructs that, at first glance, appeared to be leafy plants with long vines. They weren't. They would become animated whenever someone approached, and they cut down anyone who came too close with great prejudice. There were blades that would launch from the hospital's walls with deadly precision. The blades that weren't concealed would swipe around from time to time. This, too, was in some sort of pattern, though the scientists at the blockade hadn't been able to crack whatever equation determined this pattern.<p>

Once Rock awoke, he'd rushed to see Elec, to make sure that yes, he was whole. He was drugged by the inhibitor nanites and one of the doctors in the group gave him sedatives to keep him asleep. It would be bad if he woke. Weakened as he was, he could still really hurt people if he was angry or frightened. He was bound, too, as a cautionary measure. His aura broadcast some anxiety, worry, and fear for kin, for children. But physically, he was comfortable. That was the least they could have done for him. Rock thought he'd be happier if they could get more of the brothers down here with them and let them be together.

But the brother at this hospital had an even greater number of hostages. More people had been on staff when the takeover happened and who knew how many were in the morgue. This brother hadn't released a single hostage, either, and there hadn't been word from him or any of the others since Elec fell. There was no reaction from the complex when the car bearing Rock, Roll, Dr. Light, and the rest of the entourage arrived. Everything continued, sharp and precise as clockwork. Rock held Dr. Light's hand as they went out to the barricade, his grip tightening as he saw the field, saw the traps that were laid out there. Humans couldn't survive that, not at all.

He hugged Dr. Light once he thought he had discerned the pattern, or at least as much as could be seen from there. There were areas that weren't covered by the vines, or so it seemed. If they really were safe, he could try to head from one to the next. He didn't want to have to shoot the plants if he didn't have to.

Some of the plants moved on their own, but much of it was static. Rock was willing to bet that the entire thing could move, though. It looked like the leaves would cut him fairly easily. He'd been told that many of the structures could throw or shoot blades as well. He watched it for a few seconds more, then armed his buster and dashed out into the field. As much as he didn't want to destroy everything, he needed to be prepared in case he needed to.

The humans seemed even more uncomfortable about this theme than they were with Elec's electricity. Well, blood was never a good sign, so many humans were squeamish around it. Blades didn't bother him because he could heal easily, but for a human, this would be very scary. He was more scared that he'd have to hurt this brother like he had Elec. He didn't even know this one's name. He wanted to ask.

He made it through the first four passes without a problem. On the fifth, the pattern deviated and one of the tendrils snaked up and caught his leg, tripping him. One of the leaf-blades swung down and Rock tried to roll away, but it bit into his leg armor anyway. He inhaled sharply, sensors going off in the armor. They didn't hit any of his pain indicators, but warnings flashed up. He scrambled out of the way as quickly as he could, careful of the other plants, and shot at it in retaliation. The weak burst of plasma didn't destroy the plant, but it froze in response and dropped down to its original position. Dumbfounded, Rock blinked at it for barely a moment's time before realizing what this was and darting away from it.

Sure enough, the pattern deviated again several hops later and rather than being caught by surprise, Rock was ready with a shot to the plant. It too became immobile and dropped to its original position. He didn't linger, however. After a few rounds of this, he was nearly to the front door.

Now Roll was the one clinging to Dr. Light's side, watching her brother.

The doorway was armed as well and once Rock arrived within a few feet of it, a series of blades shot out, crisscrossing one another's paths. He jumped back, his reaction time much faster than any human could hope to be, but even then, he just barely got out of the way in time. A human would have been in pieces. He quickly moved back in, past the launching point for the blades before it could reset and deploy again.

He peered inside, just like at the previous hospital. There was no one in the lobby. Without electricity to contend with, he tried the door. It swung open easily, and Rock stepped into the lobby.

"Please," he said, into the silence. "Can't we talk? I don't want to look for you until I'm somewhere your people will be in danger if we fight."

There was silence and he looked back at the door. Maybe he was too close to the outside? "I didn't want to fight Elec at all, but especially not there," he said, hoping this brother was listening, as he went ahead.

This hospital was set up a bit differently. Or was it that this entrance wasn't the main one? It was physically a larger building than the Japanese one. This left more places his brother could be hiding, more places those victims could be stashed away. They could be down in the morgue, too, but he didn't want to force his brother to fight him so near to them. He needed to get deeper into the building. He checked the desks, but there were no floor plans for the hospital in sight. He'd have to wing it. He slipped into one of the halls. The rooms on either side were patient rooms, but he did seem to be going deeper into the building. He needed to find the elevators for the staff and not the visitors, those would lead to the portions of the facility most likely to hide his brother and the hostages.

He looked into a couple of the rooms. Most of the beds were neatly made, but there was one or two left unmade. His scans indicated that there wasn't anyone in the vicinity. Such a broad scan wouldn't leave him susceptible like the type he'd used on Elec, but he kept it to a minimum anyway.

"I don't want to hurt anyone," He tried again now that he was deeper into the complex. "I want to talk, so please." He really didn't want to fight again. This brother probably had something just as wrong with him as Elec had.

"There are families waiting to see the people here. They should be allowed to go home and be with them." Without any hostages being released, people were worried that the hostages in the remaining facilities had been killed.

"_They want to, but they won't be allowed to. Did they make you lie to me, or do you really believe that_?" He heard, or received what was sent into his systems. "_There's a surgical theater_."

Rock startled at the sound, but quieted and looked around. There were various signposts on the wall, indicating what direction room numbers were and where the elevators were. He walked to the small lobby with elevators, and was relieved to find a directory for the hospital. The theater, it said, was one level lower, near the emergency rooms. He blinked and looked for a stairwell. He still wasn't comfortable trying the elevators.

Once he was down on the proper level, it didn't take Rock long to find the surgical theater. He was more than willing to try to talk this out somewhere his brother would be comfortable. The transmission's tone reminded him of Elec. He hoped it wouldn't turn out so badly. He opened the door to the theater.

The walls were covered with plants and his brother appeared when leaves moved aside to make an opening in the wall. He waited there until Rock stepped forward, then another plant dropped down over the entrance. "What have they done with the ones who were still sick, or our brother's kin? The news claims they weren't there, human or bioroid."

Rock blinked, a bit surprised. This brother didn't know what happened to the bioroids, either? "Dr. Light said that the human patients were in a different part of the hospital. The army found them. But the news was right: there weren't any bioroids in the building beside Elec and me. I was hoping you'd know where they'd gone." Dr. Light filled him in during the ride to the hospital. Rock was absolutely confident that the bioroids hadn't been there; he'd seen the door cut down, after all. The morgue was completely empty.

"I'm not a human. I wouldn't tell you that I was _worried _about someone when I wasn't." He raised his hands, blades appearing in each one. He readied himself to attack, but not yet. "Elec: at least they're using his name. I'm Cut."

Rock looked dismayed at the appearance of Cut's weapons. "Cut, please, we don't have to fight. None of Elec's people that were released to the humans were hurt! None of the patients in the hospital were hurt! I don't know where the others went, but the humans don't have them. So please." Rock spread his hands out, a pleading gesture. "Your people want to see their families again, don't they? They can't stay here indefinitely. They need to go home."

"They can only see their families again if they're allowed to live, and live free," the bioroid pointed out, turning one hand slightly. "They're sending us messages: lots of lies, and not one actual offer. No promise, no sign of good faith. No real _negotiation_. They're just thinking that we'll swallow anything because we were only _able _to think a few months ago. Or is it that they think we can't really think or be reasonable because we're not human? Even though we're half-human. Even when the eldest was just as much your father's son as his _first _son was." He shook his head, hair jangling, and slowly it stood on end, knives bristling on top of his helmet. "You're a child in his house, and you love him, but you don't call him father, even though he created you. He's never told you that he loves you, even though you love him."

Rock's eyes widened as he became perfectly still, motor functions pausing for a millisecond as his mind raced to process Cut's claims. The eldest? His father's son? Another older brother? Who? Where? It was true, he did love Dr. Light. It was also true that Dr. Light never told him he loved him, but the important part was that he'd _demonstrated_ it.

"You're the one that said human words are cheap. You say they're lying, that they won't let those people go to their families. You say that Dr. Light doesn't see me as his child, but..." Rock trailed off for a moment and his gaze became determined and, oddly, stern. "We can feel each other's thoughts, but humans can't. They show their love by _doing._ I know Dr. Light loves me when he looks after me. He holds me when I'm lonely. He puts me to bed at night. He checks on me in the morning. When I'm worried, I can ask him about it, and he guides me. All of that is a human's way of showing love. That's why I believe in Dr. Light."

Cut hesitated, somewhere between mystified and disbelieving. "Either he," he said, slowly, "is a very cruel human, even crueler to you than he was to, to _any _of us, or you are very, very lucky." He tilted his head. "Why you?"

Now Rock was officially lost at sea. What did he mean, Light was either very cruel or Rock was very lucky? The determined look melted into a confused one and the child blinked. "What?"

"Either he is lying to you, trying to use you, when he _didn't _lie to the Eldest, even when the Eldest would have done anything for him if he had asked, even knowing he was lying, or he loves you, when he didn't love the Eldest, even when _both _halves of the Eldest were his son." Cut shook his head, settling on mystified. "I, I'll never understand him, how anyone... could..." No: his headshake was firmer this time, knives rattling. "We'll see!" He threw a knife forward, hitting the ground a foot before Rock's feet: not an attack, but a warning. The next one was an attack.

He almost flinched when the knife struck the ground. "Cut, please! Wait!" Rock shouted it out, but armed his buster to defend himself. His body tensed as he readied his weapon. "I don't want to hurt you, it's not right! You and Elec both—look at this hospital! Please, let us help you!"

"I've wanted help, and for them to let me help, for a long time, but they didn't..." He winced, at some memory, or maybe not a specific memory. Maybe just those months. "Now pay attention, or you'll get hurt!" His empty hand brushed through his hair, plucking another knife, as his other threw.

Rock scrambled back, but he could sense that this fight wasn't quite the same as the one with Elec. Cut's people weren't in the next room. He wasn't distracted. This would be much harder. When Cut went to retrieve another knife, Rock took the opportunity to fire at him, almost flinching as his buster discharged. He hoped he wouldn't hurt Cut as badly as he did Elec. Both were so angry. The quarters here weren't quite so close, so he couldn't feel it emanating the way he did Elec, but he could see that Cut was hurting, too. He need to focus to end this fight quickly so he could bring Cut back and get him help.

Cut's knives dug into the floor when they missed him, and when he dodged after throwing, he picked one up out of the concrete floor. Rock realized that he only had so much ammo, but when he could reuse it and there was so much of it, that probably wouldn't do him much good unless he could think of something.

Getting close to Cut would be a bad idea. His buster was best at range and Cut's knives would work well in close-combat. The plants in the room were all controlled by Cut; they were a potential danger. That left just shooting his brother. Oh! He still had the Thunder Beam. Cut wouldn't be expecting it. He'd need to get in close to surprise him, though. He wasn't sure how resistant his brother would be. Until then, he had his buster. He dodged another thrown knife. This one nearly hit him, though. He took advantage of Cut having to rearm himself, and shot at him again with the buster.

Cut dodged, but the buster almost hit one of his knives. Rock's eyes widened and he quickly switched weapons and fired again. The thunder beam earthed itself in the knife behind his brother just as he grabbed it. He yelped as the charge hit him and, cringing, Rock switched to the buster. He didn't want to hit Cut with the thunder beam more than he had to, not when Dr. Light said the buster was designed to put the nanites to sleep. So it did damage, but hopefully it meant it would take less damage to make them stop fighting.

Rock ran around to put more distance between them and shot at Cut while he was still put off by the thunder beam. If he could just get one good shot in, Cut would be incapacitated and he could help him.

His brother stood still, eyes narrowed, and Rock could tell that he was focusing on something. Instead of shooting, he stood there for a moment and wondered what Cut was doing. That was why he was able to dodge when the plant that sealed the door suddenly sent its leaves shooting forward. As he ran towards Cut, he knocked him over so the leaves wouldn't hit him. He winced, surprised that Cut's armor _hurt_, but he didn't let him go until he'd touched him with his buster arm.

Cut jerked and lay still.

Rock wanted to scan him, make sure that he was alright, but he'd _promised_, so he grabbed him and ran back to the entrance, hoping the plants had stopped attacking.

Cut was bigger than Rock, but not nearly as big as Elec, so he could get his brother to the elevator and get to the main floor without much trouble. Rock didn't look like much by human standards, but he wasn't human. Cut wasn't too heavy for Rock, or even a struggle to lift. The only hassle was Cut's bulk. Cut's armor was sharp in a lot of places and there were still blades concealed in his hair. He'd have to warn the humans before they moved him to a stretcher. His armor scratched the floor as Rock half-dragged, half-carried his older brother to the front door. They hadn't fought near the hostages and Rock sincerely hoped that they were safe. That these ones wouldn't go missing, either. Because if Cut hadn't known what happened to Elec's, he wouldn't know where his went, either.

By the time Rock got to the front, the humans outside had determined that the field was safe to cross. Well, as safe as stationary blades could be. Soldiers were already heading over to sweep the building. Rock politely declined their assistance, explaining how sharp Cut was. He didn't want them to hurt themselves. Rock cut his arm on the way up, but it was already healing. He'd be fine, the field wasn't that wide. So please, find the hostages. Cut didn't tell him where they were, but maybe the morgue? Like Elec's had been.

Roll wasn't pleased that the armor was sharp, that it kept cutting Rock when Rock was trying to _help _him after Cut had lost, so she used her nanites to melt the blade parts off and tore off all the knives in his hair.

When Rock emerged from Elec's hospital, he was visibly upset by having to fight his brother. This time, he was quieter. The fight hadn't been nearly so upsetting. It might have been, but Cut's words weighed more heavily on Rock. He let Roll scan him, she needed to make sure _he_ was okay, but once she was done, he went straight to Dr. Light and hugged him. He was trembling a little.

What Cut said about Dr. Light wasn't true. His processor took Cut's claims, lined them up with all the data he had on Dr. Light, and summarily discarded them. There was absolutely nothing in Rock's experience to solidify them. Everything Rock knew refuted them. It should have comforted him, so why was he still so upset? He didn't understand, he'd never encountered anything like this. How could there be two radically different views of the same man? Dr. Light was Dr. Light, no matter who he was talking to. What happened to Cut and Elec, for them to come to those conclusions about him? Was it a virus, or had someone hacked them? It couldn't be genuine data. Had they been in their right minds, they'd have agreed to come with. They wouldn't have been holding those people hostage. They'd have wanted to be helped.

"What's wrong, Rock?" Dr. Light asked. Had it bothered him to have to drag the other bioroid, his brother, along the ground?

"T-there's something really wrong with them, Dr. Light." Even Rock's voice was shaky. He gripped the doctor's lab coat a bit tighter. "They don't make any sense."

"Oh? What do you mean?" Why was Rock so sure: was there an outside force at work here, that Dr. Light had missed? Roll's scans, too.

"I don't know what happened to them. But they…" Rock trailed off. If Dr. Light was a bioroid, Rock would have used his nanites to communicate how he was feeling. Instead, he was struggling for words. But there was another way he could tell the doctor. Clearer than words. "I want to show you the audio/visual feed for the fight. He didn't make any sense." Less sense than Elec.

"Let's get onboard the plane, and you can use the equipment there," Dr. Light coaxed him. Brazil next.

Rock nodded, but didn't let go of Dr. Light's lab coat. Not right away. After a few moments more, he reluctantly let go enough for Dr. Light to be able to walk with him. He held his hand instead.

Roll and Cut were already on board the plane. Cut was restrained and placed beside Elec. They could keep each other company when Rock and Roll couldn't. She was still working on scanning Cut. They'd have two data sets to compare now.

Rock used his nanites to hook up to the computer Roll wasn't working off of and once Dr. Light sat down, he brought up the feed.

"I found a 'Rolling Cutter,' Rock," Roll said, a bit disapprovingly. "Don't be so sloppy with it, ok? And don't use it to line your armor like that." It was just wrong, to cut people who were trying to help you. Protecting baby bioroids, maybe, and she shook her broom at people when they were being difficult sometimes, even though she didn't actually want to hurt them, but being, being _spiteful _was different.

"Thank you, Roll." He really was grateful, even though it made him feel a bit sick that he'd had to fight Cut to even get it. But this ability to sharpen his nanites to cut things, he could use it to get into places. It'd be safer than blasting everything with his buster. Rock turned his attention back to the screen then and began to play the fight with Cut for Dr. Light. He looked down at his feet as he did so. He didn't want to watch it again.

It was all laid plainly before Dr. Light. They'd seen the broadcasts directed at them and saw that they were shallow attempts and empty offers. That in itself was a mistake. If they were going to reach out, it should have been with sincerity.

A lot of the others present also winced, wondering who had been responsible for that. Even if someone was going to lie, they should at least lie well. What were hostage negotiators for, after all?

The feed continued to the part that was truly upsetting Rock. Cut's accusations and claims about Dr. Light and the kind of person he was. The mention of the prototype. Cut's accusation that Rock wasn't loved, that he was being used. Rock's rebuttal. Cut's disbelief. They couldn't decide if he was programmed to think that way or if that was really Rock. That's how bad their experience had been. They were unable to accept that there may be even one bioroid that Light was genuinely kind and loving toward.

Or were they jealous? Offended on their older brother's behalf, their lost brother, because if Dr. Light could find it in him to be kind to Rock, then why not the one who had also been his biological son?

It was likely a combination of the two. Everything they'd stated about the incident was apparent on the news, and the rest could be deduced from there. Rock looked back to Dr. Light, unsure. His worldview was shifting. It was a part of growing up, certainly, but most people didn't go from being happy, sheltered children to a key point in what was quickly beginning to resemble a war.

All he could do was gather the boy up onto his lap: he had to sit down, anyway. "It's... difficult to talk about." He had to wonder, "Is that why you thought there was something wrong with them, because he was... he felt that way about... that?" He shook his head, wanting to chuckle, but there was no humor in this, not even the kind that was laughing at cruel irony. "There was... something I failed to do, before you were built." He wanted to say that he was trying to make up for it, but was he?

Treating Rock and Roll like this had been a test, and now who was he trying to comfort here?

Rock curled up in his father's lap and rested his head against Dr. Light's shoulder. It was true, that was the main reason why he'd thought they were so sick. Their claims did not match up to anything in Rock's data. It was polar opposite, all down the line. "None of their claims matched any data. Elec said he could show me, but then we'd have to touch and it would have been dangerous." For both him and Elec. Even though they were brothers, they were on opposite sides of this. More data would be nice, it was possible his was incomplete, but then Dr. Light would be… Was he validating Elec and Cut's claim?

"Many of their complaints are things that were done to make sure that your kind would be safe, for humans and the environment. Open air meant wind that could spread nanites. Containment cells at night were also to make sure that nothing could get out, and start infecting people, plants and other life forms. The..." He shook his head. "It was those decisions that made them suffer, Rock. They have every right to be angry with me, for what they went through, even though I hoped they wouldn't become awake enough to be bothered by it." That was the part that was safer, easier to talk about.

"But if they're awake now, and everyone knows, can't it change?" Can't they be treated the way Rock and Roll were? "They don't believe that it will," his words were softer that time. His brothers had no faith in humanity.

He sighed. "They surprised everyone. The precautions were put in place because people were worried that they might hurt or infect others, even if not on purpose, and now they have. Even though they have a right to feel hurt, they haven't done anything to reassure people. I... will do what I can, Rock."

That was all he could promise him without lying.


	7. Ambivalence

_I think that because of the Ruby Spears cartoon, Gutsman tends to get portrayed as a doofus. It makes me sad. I think that if anything, he'd be one of those people that's very, very patient—until you piss him off. Then you'd better run._

_I'd also like to thank everyone for their support, reviews and watches, thus far. It's really nice when you put something out there and there's such a positive response, doubly so when you've really made someone think, try to come to conclusions, make their own theories. The best is when your own creative endeavor inspires someone else. If you have a theory/question about something going on, ask away in review or PM. I'll answer what I can, provided it's not too spoilertastic. _

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><p>The Amazon Rainforest was far different than any clime Rock had been in thus far. His sensors indicated it was humid, though he didn't sweat quite so much as the humans did. His nanites were more effective at diffusing excess heat, though most of that energy went into functions that could use it rather than it just radiating away. And the noise! They'd driven through the jungle for a few hours before coming to the place that hosted their next target. This time it was a sprawling medical research facility. Farmers used to let their cattle graze in the large clearing it sat in. A pharmaceutical company bought them out and cleared out a bit further. Conservationists threw a fit at that one, but the facility housed a lot of ecologists and botanists that were researching ways to revitalize the worn out soil in the area. They were using the land to try and grow native species.<p>

The bioroid unit here, officially named DLN 004, was being used to test new medications. Their effects on the human body could be documented through him, and unforeseen side effects were far less likely to kill him. There were a lot of patients here, too, as a last resort. The trials they were on were very experimental. It was dangerous, but for all of them, the only other option was waiting for death.

This was how it should have continued. It would have, but DLN 004 revolted at the same time as the others—down to the _minute_—and now, what should have been barren land was overgrown with very lush and healthy native flora. The growth came up overnight and any attempts to penetrate the swath of plant life was met with unending resistance from the mutated animal life residing there.

Every single living thing seen in this patch of jungle was completely changed. They weren't even recognizable as biological organisms. The Brazilian army couldn't even be sure what these were before the change. They looked purely robotic. It'd been confirmed that they were nanite-based. They weren't secondary nanite clusters sent out like drones; these were each an individual animal.

They were big, for one thing. Geometric and symmetrical. Mathematically pleasing. They were pretty, in a way. They were decked out in bright, tropical colors. Warning colors. Particularly reds and blacks. The whole spectrum was there, though, and it was frightening how well they blended in with those plants. They were like ghosts moving around in there. It was also frightening how seamlessly it blended in with the surrounding, naturally-grown forest. If any left the area, they'd have no way of knowing. They'd have no way of retrieving it. There wasn't a thing to be done about it, either.

Most of the patients here had gone home, or tried to, since they already spent a long time away from their families. This bioroid wanted them to be able to walk around, glad they were on their feet and he didn't have to know that they were dying because he couldn't think. They described him as a big, bluff, friendly fellow and they'd thought he was just a nurse with another treatment, with those syringes.

It was after that report that they had rushed an inventory of the medical supplies retrieved from the other two hospitals.

Syringes, filled with something nanite-based, were found. Identical syringes with no serial numbers, no nothing.

"At least they weren't infected by touch," someone commented.

Given the circumstances, 004 probably did consider himself along the lines of a nurse. Why should these people be injected with cures that may not work, with chemicals whose side effects may far outweigh any potential gain? This way, they only needed to be injected once. The cure was absolute: they were not sick any more. They could not become ill again. Wasn't that what everyone wanted?

That's what they'd been built for, what they'd been programmed for. How could humanity blame them for this? They'd had no other way.

It was fairly safe to assume that the only people left in there were bioroids, even though some of the names left weren't on the hospital's last report of the deaths. 3 AM was a dangerous time for the sick and it was past that hour here when the bioroids struck.

Dr. Light was handed the report on what people were left inside. There was an estimated number and it was a bit larger than Elec or Cut's. Rock was keeping very near to Dr. Light. The soldiers were becoming used to it. It helped that children his age cling to their parents when they're frightened. It didn't seem unnatural.

Rock was worried about Elec and Cut, and about this brother as well. He'd gone into the back of the plane to see them before disembarking. He'd told them that he'd do his best not to hurt this brother too badly. He felt a bit strange, knowing they'd hate being imprisoned there like that, but what could he do? It was a good thing they were unconscious. It was better that way.

At least they were together, and they would probably keep Guts with them too. It sounded like a weird choice of name, but it meant courage. And in Rock's mind, it was _much _better than Cut. That one made him shudder a bit.

Rock looked the jungle over. This area didn't have any visible pattern to discern. Or rather, it was more likely that it was running a series of complex patterns. It'd take a long time to try and separate each element out and find the patterns. It would be a pointless effort, seeing as Guts could easily harness and change things up as he pleased. Rock would have to go in the hard way this time.

"What about the animals?" he asked Dr. Light, tugging at his coat.

"They've been keeping anyone that comes close away from the complex. They don't give pursuit once you leave their territory, but…" No one tried to stand their ground, not when these things could kill them so effortlessly. It was easy to imagine what would happen. "They may react differently to a bioroid's approach." That was doubtful. He placed a comforting arm around the child. "Try to avoid them if you can. They leave off once you leave their area, so it's possible they'll stop pursuit once you get inside."

Everyone in Dr. Light's party knew the drill now, and the soldiers readied their weapons—just in case—as Rock ran toward the jungle perimeter. The forest was dense, and Rock would disappear from sight after just a yard or two. He would, had he not been swarmed by animals the instant he crossed the boundary. One pounced on him from the side, and two from ahead. A fourth and fifth joined in—where had they come from?—and Rock was knocked to the ground before he even had time to arm his buster. Dr. Light's heart dropped into his stomach. The soldiers were too stunned to move, no one expected Rock to be taken down so quickly. Dr. Light wanted to call out, to run forward, to do something, but he was frozen in place. One of the ones that pounced from the front scooted up closer to him and soon, the boy was flat on his back, with five creatures swarming him. A loud humming could be heard even from the blockade.

So could Rock's laughter. It started as a muffled chuckle, but now he was laughing like it was the funniest thing in the world. The animals were making soft noises, some whining, some making something like a chirp or a beep, a mix of organic and mechanical. Rock let them sniff him, or the equivalent, and they all clamored to be pet. They kept nudging each other out of the way, and nuzzling his hands, each vying for his attention. And all the while, he just kept laughing.

They saw one of them lick his face, and he laughed again and nuzzled back, relieved and enchanted the way a boy might be by a new puppy. A bunch of puppies. Dr. Light could see, in his mind's eye, Rock turning to him and saying, "Can we keep them?"

Had they not already had an owner, Rock really may have. Instead, he contented himself with being swamped in a pile of "puppies". It was a relief, really, and it had a therapeutic effect on him. He could sense that these belonged to his "brother", and they were recognizing him as kin, or at least, as a bioroid.

One of them started sniffing at Rock's hip, then two of them: the first kind of scrabbled at Rock's armor, claws sheathed. "What's that?" Rock reached down, and pulled out something. "Are you hungry, little guys?"

"Rock! I made those for you!"

"But they're..." The thing was, Rock could read them, and they weren't hungry, they just wanted treats. "Please, Roll?"

Roll sighed. She didn't have to read Rock to see how badly he wanted to give them some treats. To let them know that yes, they were very good, and he was happy to see them. It was written all over his face. "Fine, but don't give them all of it! You'll need them later!"

Rock beamed and they became a bit more frantic, almost dancing around as they wriggled closer to him and to the treat. It was a mineral bar that was loaded in nutrients and other necessities for nanite repairs. He broke off pieces and fed them to the animals, much to their collective delight.

Roll sighed, folding her arms, and headed back to the plane. She'd made a decent-sized box of them before they left, in case Rock had to regrow his armor multiple times. She was glad that wasn't likely to happen now: he'd been mostly unscathed after the first two. So... there wasn't really any reason not to let him, and she could just give him replacements. Right. And then she'd have the box with her out there while he was gone...

It was better than just sitting there, bored and worried.

Once the bar was gone, Rock got to his feet as the animals jumped up at him, trying to coax him to sit back down and pet them more. He laughed again, but didn't relent for them. He really had to go inside, no matter how much he wanted to stay and play.

Honestly, in a way, this was a genius tactic. Even if they were friendly, it was clearly hard for Rock to just leave them. It also made a good test for the boy's intentions. If he'd assumed they were enemies, and tried to strike them?

They just really weren't letting him through, though. Suddenly, he had an idea, and reached into his pocket for another bar. He waved it at them, easily avoiding the few small ones that jumped up to try to get at it. "See the bar? It's really yummy, Roll made it."

Roll didn't preen, as she walked back with her box.

"Do you guys want the bar?" When there were lots of excited noises, Rock drew his arm back and then threw it to the right. With more excited noises, they chased after it, as Rock ran for it.

When the dust cloud around the bar cleared, they looked around for Rock... but by then Roll had come into the area they were allowed to prowl around and was sitting on her crate with another bar. "Here, mousies!" They made a beeline over to Roll, Rock evidently forgotten in the mad rush for more treats.

Roll settled one of the smaller mousies on her lap and set about trying to train them to sit.

"Mousies?" Dr. Light asked, eyebrows raised.

She nodded: she'd scanned them, of course, before placing herself in potential danger. Even if they _were _really cute. "They're the facility's lab mice, Dr. Light."

Rock was able to make his way through the jungle unhindered by any more animals. It still took some time to navigate through the dense undergrowth without cutting it all down. Doing that would be so wasteful. There were other animals in there, he could sense them in his scans, but they didn't bother him. It was like they were poised to look for something else entirely.

Another thing for Rock to be thankful for was that he had a better sense of direction than a human. His enhanced systems allowed him to pinpoint the cardinal directions. Without that ability, he'd have turned the wrong way several times. But this way, he didn't stray at all unless it was to go around a particularly thick tree trunk.

He emerged on the other side, a bit dirty, but none the worse for the wear. He looked back, but he knew he wouldn't be able to see the others. From here, he was on his own. He walked up to what looked like the front door of the complex.

Just like the other buildings, it was very quiet once Rock stepped inside. It was more than a little strange that he'd just…gotten in with no real opposition. Except those mice. They were so cute. This building felt less like a hospital and more like a business, though. It was a lot more corporate. There would be an infirmary wing that served as hospital, but the building, according to Dr. Light, was largely research labs. There was a morgue, of course. He had no idea where to look for this brother.

Since there was a bell at the desk in the entryway, he rang it. "Excuse me?" He waited a moment. "Hello? Is anyone there?" Another pause. "I like your pets, they're really nice," he said, because they were, and started looking.

He chose a hallway and began walking. This looked like a series of laboratories. Most were on the smaller size, nothing like Dr. Light's laboratory complex. It went into sub-basements. This one was sizeable, but just couldn't hold a candle to it. He poked his head into a few of the labs. They were all empty. He stepped into one that was set up as a greenhouse, with plants growing in pots. There were notes attached to the front of each planter: specifics about the experiment, what chemicals were given, how much water, how much light. What was done to the soil to help it grow. Some were working, but many were struggling. He looked around again.

"Hello? You're still in here, aren't you?" He still had the instinct to help his brother, to fix him, but having heard some of Dr. Light's story, some affirmation that it wasn't all faulty logic, helped him stay calm as he tried to coax this brother from hiding. "I want to talk to you. I can see how hard everyone's been working here, to help the land. I bet everyone's been working just as hard to cure the sick people, too. That's why you did that, isn't it?" Why should more people die waiting for a cure when they didn't need to? This was helping everyone, wasn't it?

He didn't want to mess up the experiment, but some of the plants weren't doing so well... It made him hesitate before moving on.

He continued deeper into the complex. The entire place was quiet as a grave. Just like the others. "You still have your people here, don't you? I accidentally came too close to Elec's, and we had to fight in a bad place. I don't want to do that again, so please, come talk to me. I don't want anyone to get hurt." He didn't know what he'd have to say to get through. He didn't know if they were even hearing him. He hoped they were, he was pretty deep in now.

He heard a sigh, but he couldn't tell where it was coming from. "I don't understand you, boy."

Ambient nanites? Rock looked around, a bit wary. He didn't think this brother would attack him out of the blue, but it was better safe than sorry. "Can you please come out?" So they can talk for real. They couldn't touch, it wasn't safe, but seeing one another would be more real than this. This was like what humans did, on the phone.

"When I come out, we'll have to fight," his brother pointed out. He sounded fairly even-tempered about it.

Rock sighed. He'd hoped they _wouldn't. _"I can't leave without you. You guys need help." He sounded a bit sad, saying that. Not defeated, but...resigned to it. Even if they had a right to be angry, their behavior wasn't right. What they did to those people wasn't right. Even if he was the least violent of them so far.

"Unless I am mistaken, you have the wrong verb tense. I think you mean need_ed_," he said, although there wasn't any real bitterness there. "You present me with a dilemma. What would happen if I crushed you, and had one of my pets take you to your sister to fix?"

Rock started, but frowned, his expression becoming grim. "I'd come straight back in here." Roll would probably cry. Dr. Light would be upset. "I know you let your patients go, and we're thankful, but there's something wrong with you, to take these measures. This isn't…" He trailed off, trying to think of how to explain it. "This isn't right. This isn't the answer. This won't fix anything."

"How else will we force them to recognize that we are serious? That our grievances and the lives of our people, patients, and family, are not something we take lightly? Were you allowed to study any history?" Guts wondered. "Still, even if I defeated you twenty times, if I kept you even once, they would send your sister as well, and then you too would also be in danger if they attacked this place with their nuclear bombs." Rock could almost feel the grimace. "They treat everything that lives so lightly, but at least this includes even themselves. The patients here, my patients, were numbers and data. When they could save a life, but it would make the data not match, and endanger a potential cure? It is like the Eldest, only with a whimper, not a bang."

He heard a heavy tread behind him as his brother finally approached. He only just now figured out that the voice had been coming from a panel on the wall.

"But to incinerate the cures he made, too... I have made what I could, but I wonder if they will fare any better. Still, there is no more time left, and the ones I couldn't save before have fled now. At least they will live on in body, as long as my kin survive. It's a pity the same trick won't work for the others... So, at least I will keep you from getting to them for as long as I can." He smashed his fists together, then grabbed one of the office chairs and hurled it at Rock.

Rock rolled out of the way. When he stood, his buster was armed. He knew that any more pleading would fall on deaf ears. Even now that he better understood why they were behaving this way, that didn't make it right. They shouldn't be fighting this way. There must be another way. Dr. Light even said that them being this advanced was supposed to be impossible. If the humans had known they'd become fully functional bioroids, they wouldn't have been treated so.

Guts was _huge. _He was massive and muscular and far more imposing than Cut or Elec. He seemed to be slow-moving, though. Rock took a shot at Guts, just to gauge his reaction. He'd rather not have to resort to another weapon. Another weapon meant hurting his brother with no chance of the attack putting him to sleep.

The buster shot hit the desk Guts picked up, and even as it broke he threw both pieces at Rock, one after the other.

Rock managed to roll to dodge the first one, but the second one impacted him before he could recover and it knocked him back. He cried out in pain and surprise, but got to his feet as quickly as he could, before Guts could attack him again. The pain hadn't quite faded from his eyes when he looked up, at his brother.

He stood there with another chair, but didn't throw it until Rock had gotten his feet and back into a ready position.

Rock gritted his teeth, but he was able to completely dodge this one. He began charging his buster. Once Guts ran out of furniture to throw, Rock was willing to bet he'd begin using his fists. He knew he'd have to finish this before Guts completely overpowered him.

What could he do? Um, slicing up the furniture would just make the hitting start sooner, and once Guts grabbed him Rock knew he would be in trouble. Like Cut had been.

Wait, what about Elec's? It would be easy to hit Guts, and he could keep it going for longer than the buster. He changed the weapon out, his armor flickering to a new color set. That was the only hint Guts would get, because Rock immediately turned and raised his hands, palms turned outward. They sparked, then a charge went from him to Guts, the lightning arcing angrily through the air and casting strange shadows in the room.

He _had _to stop it as soon as it hit, wincing, but when Guts recovered he shot again, and a third time, until it took him a few seconds to clear a woozy head_. _Then he switched back to the buster, hoping it would be ok, and fired.

When Guts didn't get up, he went over and touched him. "Please be okay, please be ok, all your pets would be... Thank goodness." Um, no, not thank goodness. "Roll's going to be mad at me." He sat down, sighing. This one was called Power Fist. "I should check on your pets for you... Maybe someone will look after them while you're away."

He looked down back down to Guts. There was no way he'd be able to carry him out; he was way too big. If there was no one else, he could steal some blankets, put Guts on them, and try pulling him that way, but the army would know the best way to move him without hurting him. And it wouldn't hurt them the way Cut may have.

It took longer than last time for the Army to arrive. It was immediately evident when Guts was defeated: the mice began whimpering and became very anxious. The army had to contend with the lush overgrowth, then find Rock in the complex after clearing every room. They spread out to try and find the hostages. It took a while for them to come in with a gurney that could accommodate Guts. Rock stayed with him the entire time. None of his brothers seemed like bad people. Was he a bad person, then, for stopping them? But if he didn't, then all those families…he didn't know what to think anymore.


	8. Fracture

_We're about halfway through this first story arc now, if my chapter count is any indication. I like worldbuilding/story setup. Establishing why things are the way they are and using circumstances as a jumping point for characters. La__ryna6 and I flipped who was playing who for these next three bioroids, so that was a fun change, too. I like Ice, he's short and adorable. I think I said this (several times) already, but I'm terrible at the games. They frustrate me to no end. I think it's just platformers like that in general. If I force myself to sit down and play them, I learn and improve, but it just takes way longer than even free-running adventure games (like Zelda or Okami.)_

_Bioroids are programmed to look after their own health and the health of others. Their primary objective is to keep humans (and their bodies) healthy. All of the "true" bioroids thus far were made from already-dead bodies. The hospital workers that were injected are a different kind of bioroid and won't be considered full-fledged by any means. We're calling the injected "the turned." Anyway, because the true bioroids are in human bodies themselves, it's a double stressor on their programming. They can't heal others if they're sick and their minds and bodies are suffering, and on top of that, there are patients dying in front of them when some part of them knows that if humanity had just trusted them and let them reach their full potential, no one would be dying._

_So making these children from the bodies in the morgue is both born from the need for company and this sense of atonement: they couldn't save the person born into the body, but at least they can keep them alive in some sense, though these children. It's not a mockery to the bioroids, to inject the dead bodies. It's a very respectful and appropriate thing to do._

_But of course, humanity is still majorly creeped out by it._

* * *

><p>Dr. Light expected it to be cold. It was the dead of winter in Canada. In northern Manitoba. Of course it'd be cold. Now that he was here, he realized he never knew what cold was. He'd never felt anything like it. Or was it his age? His father said once that the older he got, the colder it felt every winter. It was beyond excruciating: even breathing hurt. The usual blockade was in place, but it was populated with small trailers and portable generators. It was too cold to stand outside for any length of time and the police stationed there were wearing parkas, heavy gloves, snow boots, the whole ensemble. Only their eyes were visible under their hoods, and some were wearing darkened visors to help keep the wind out. Dr. Light packed the appropriate things for himself and the children, and everyone was bundling up before the plane came in for a landing. Rock remained in his armor and instead took some additional supplements to allow his nanites to generate extra heat to keep his temperature regulated. Roll had a coat. Dr. Light had a parka.<p>

Everyone was shocked to see the hospital once they arrived. It wasn't even recognizable as a building. A full blizzard was whipping snow everywhere and visibility was near zero. It took an extra two hours to even get to the blockade, short of a drive as it should have been. Sometimes, the wind would die down just slightly, enough to see the outline of the hospital. Or rather, the silhouette of the fifteen feet of solid ice encasing it. The ground was covered in over a foot of snow, and below that was solid ice. It was dangerous to even walk; the snow wasn't packed hard at all. It was wet and heavy, but it was fresh. It was terrifyingly easy to slip. Rock and Roll both stuck close to Dr. Light to help him walk. Humans were fragile in the strangest ways. An older human like Dr. Light could be seriously injured by a fall like that. There were people waiting at the barricade, ready to greet them, but they were ushered into one of the trailers before any talking was done. No one wanted to stand around out there.

They'd wanted to know more about the takedown in Brazil, though they'd had questions about this rebellion overall. Just like the other places. It wasn't all good news.

"We subdued Guts, and he is being held along with Cut and Elec. He already released his hostage patients, and we swept the building looking for the new bioroids. Everyone went in. That…was our mistake. They weren't inside to begin with. They'd been in the surrounding jungle all around. We realized it too late. By the time the army spread out to corner them, they were gone. " They disappeared into thin air. "They are still searching. At this point, given what happened before, I don't think we'll recover any."

"You mean they're just wandering around, loose in the Amazon?" The implications were tremendously terrifying. "Are they able to…affect their surroundings?" Could they alter local wildlife the way Guts had? Could…they even affect people?

Light looked old, far older than he was. He knew the scope of Blues' capabilities better than most. He couldn't deny that they could evolve to be similarly sophisticated. "Without looking at them, we won't know. We'd need to scan them to see what they can do." Of all the places to escape into, the Amazon Rainforest was one of the best to hide in. If you knew where to go, what to avoid, and how to hunt, it was a cradle for all life. The bioroids had the advantage of being stronger than the predators, faster than any dangers, and immune to all poisons. Nothing in there was a real threat, except the humans hunting them. They could stay indefinitely.

"They won't want to be alone," Rock said, and it was meant to be reassuring. "So hopefully they'll find each other, and if Guts thinks they'll be safe, they should come." To see their maker, he thought, sticking close to Dr. Light to warm him up.

Dr. Light highly doubted they'd come within twenty miles of them if Guts had anything to say about it. "Has this one said anything since Elec was taken down?" Their continued silence spoke volumes. Especially after the broadcasts aimed at them. They saw no point in trying to negotiate or argue.

They shook their heads. "Since the last group was released, he hasn't made any holes in the ice. It just keeps getting thicker."

"We've confirmed that they were probably injected here, too," one of the men wearing a nurse's badge spoke up. He'd been off-shift when it happened, otherwise he'd have been infected, like the other staff, even though he'd had barely anything to do with the bioroid. Sure, he'd handled samples and seen it a few times, but that was all.

Dr. Light expected as much. He looked over the information they'd gleaned from the building. The entire thing was completely entrenched in the ice. It was a solid and effective defense, impermeable at first glance. But everything had a weak point. They had to get Rock in there somehow. "With the entire facility encased like this, I can't imagine how the bioroid could get the young in there to escape." Maybe this time, they'd actually be able to catch them. They'd be able to examine them and figure out what they'd been injected with. And, a voice in the back of his mind supplied, the army will want to use them as bait to lure the other two from hiding.

"Unless they tunneled," one of the soldiers said grimly. "In this weather, it's hard for the detection equipment to function." False alarms, and what if they had finished digging before anyone had thought of digging some equipment out of storage?

"Through the winter ground?" Well, it wasn't implausible since, well, _bioroids,_ but it'd take a lot of time and effort. This terrain wasn't so friendly to lost children, either. They could get cold and freeze, too. They could take a lot more, but they had limits. Until they figured out how to work around that, too.

They relaxed, just slightly, since Dr. Light didn't seem to think it was likely.

"There haven't been any apparent traps?" He was a bit surprised by this. All of the other places were rotten with hidden dangers, but according to these readings, it was just ice. Meters of ice. "Roll? Did you pick up on anything before we came inside?" They hadn't been out there for long, but he wouldn't put it past her to quickly scan the area before heading inside.

"Well... they brought a lot of equipment. There are still some heat sources in there, or at least it's not as cold as it would be if there weren't any heat sources." Even though the power should have been cut, the hospital had _extensive_ emergency fuel supplies.

"Were you able to pinpoint the locations of any of the heat sources?" The bioroids would be where it was warmer. There would probably be false areas that were warm just to throw them off, but even if they narrowed it down to a certain half of the building….

"No, just that heat is being generated inside the hospital. I'm pretty sure it's not just body heat." She tilted her head. "I could look again, I only had a moment." As they were pulled inside the trailer.

"When we head out again, will you take another look?" It'd be faster for Rock if he knew where to go. He could see the boy was a bit antsy to go in and get it over with. He could imagine how much Rock hated it. Another twinge of guilt passed through him.

Roll nodded. "Of course, Dr. Light."

That was it, then. They sat for a few minutes more, going over the scans of the building the army managed to do. They weren't anything near what Roll could do. It'd be clearer if not for the snow. Rock clung to his side the entire time and he kept an arm around the boy. Hopefully, it'd be over soon. They'd have this one sleeping alongside the others, then only two more. Dr. Light didn't want to think of what may come after. Guts resigned himself to fighting Rock before appearing when Cut and Elec tried arguing their side. They had to realize what their fates would be. If they didn't at first, they had to by now.

Rock's eyes were big, looking up at him, and he knew he should find something to say, to comfort the boy. To reassure him that things would be alright, for him and his brothers. And his nieces and nephews, now.

Except what could he say that wouldn't be an outright lie? The longer this went on, the more horrified the world's population became. They weren't even being led by someone, it was their own doing. They would be martyred for it, and then would they become a platform for their children, the way Blues had for them? More bioroids would be made with even stricter limitations. They'd never be allowed to think again. Not unless their nanites completely subverted everyone's efforts, they way they had this time. And the time before.

They must be hoping that either the prisoners wouldn't be killed, that some arrangement could be made, that the infected humans would be allowed to be free and from them might come some hope, some precedent, for bioroids to be treated the same way... or this would be the last of it. That if even the humans had to be imprisoned or... no more bioroids would be made.

Rather than say anything, he drew Rock into a hug. That gesture, at least, was completely sincere.

They waited for Roll's scans to finish before Rock would head outside. The hospital bioroids were young, but they were astute. They'd proven to have the minds of adults, complete with the cynicism and wariness that came with bitter experience. They'd probably shared each other's experiences and commiserated, then came to the same conclusion. Especially after they were able to get at the Internet and see what had come before them.

"We've gotten some flamethrowers and other equipment together. After the first attempt, we decided to wait for your arrival." The first attempt ended in a lot of serious frostbite, but no fatalities. "We can fire them up when you're ready, after you've decided on an insertion point."

Waiting was probably for the best; Dr. Light had no doubt that whatever opening they managed to make would quickly seal up again. Best not to waste energy and fuel. "Roll?" She'd be able to pinpoint the most likely entrance to use, too.

"You should stay inside, Dr. Light," she reminded him, standing up. She was glad she hadn't fed all those bars to the mousies, but she shouldn't deplete their supplies any more. "Do you have any energy drinks?" she asked the soldier who seemed to be in charge. "This might take a while, and I don't have a lot of mass to retain heat."

Thankfully, the soldiers had the presence of mind to bring some energy supplements from the plane. The ones he had on him were made for humans in mind, so they weren't as high in minerals as the bars Roll'd made, but it was still high in calories and thus, would help her produce body heat.

"Thank you, Dr. Light." She took them and went out without complaint. One of the soldiers got the door for her. "Thank you."

"Thank you," the sergeant said, and after looking at the commander he motioned for his men to come escort her.

"If you don't mind, I might need more energy bars. And something to drink." That was why she'd asked for energy drinks, for the water.

"We'll help you get through the snow," Dr. Light thought he heard him assure her, over the wind, as the door was closed behind them.

It took a little while for Roll to complete her scans. The blizzard made it harder for her to get an accurate reading on it, and staying warm would be taking up a lot of energy. He'd have her rest when she got inside again. She'd be worried about Rock, so she'd refuse to sleep, but she'd been worrying herself so much, it couldn't be good.

He hoped that once this one fell, the ice would stop reforming and the blizzard would calm. It'd be much easier to get Rock and any bioroids left behind out that way.

Suddenly, a horrible thought occurred to him. He truly hoped he was wrong. He truly hoped that the ones Elec and Cut made hadn't chosen death over capture.

Roll's return to the trailer jarred Dr. Light from his thoughts. It'd been nearly ten minutes, but she looked confident, if not cold and a bit worn out. He motioned her over to him, so she could curl against his side and warm up while delivering the results of her scan.

Sadly, he was an old man, and chilled easily. At least one of the men that had gone with Roll moved a heat lamp closer to them, shining it on her after rubbing his hands in front of it. "They're starting now," she told Rock. "They'll let us know when they're close to the door I picked."

It took them nearly a half-hour to get all the way through the ice, even with equipment made for that job. One of the men was monitoring the radio for any transmissions. Once in a while, they'd catch flickers of news reports or local police radios. He'd pause on these transmissions long enough to establish that it wasn't a message from the bioroid in the hospital before moving on to a new frequency. They remained silent. Some time later, someone came in to tell them that the opening was secured.

They alerted him when they got to the door. One of them had tried the door: it was locked, or possibly jammed. Rock didn't mind being the one to break it open: if a human did it, and Ice was standing inside, something bad might happen.

So, he stood in the tunnel and raised his buster, hoping Ice hadn't also filled up the rooms inside the hospital with ice. That would take forever.

The inside of the hospital was coated with ice, but it was barely a centimeter thick in most places. There was frost marring it in places, making it white and opaque, but the rest looked like flawless glass. It shone in the low light level, and some of the fluorescent lights were flickering behind it. It was warmer inside, especially since the wind couldn't blow in here, but it was still well below freezing. There was an area that had a warmer ambient temperature, but it was a ways in.

Some of the doors had snow piled on either side of them, so he had to push it out of the way as he went forward. "Hello?" he called, but sound was muffled in here. He doubted anyone could hear him from more than a couple rooms away.

His only answer was the howl of the wind outside. The floor glinted and he had to move carefully to avoid slipping. The ice on the floor was thinnest. Black ice. This hospital was quiet, but it wasn't the way it'd been in Brazil, where he half-expected an animal to attack him inside, nor was it like Australia or Japan, where deadly traps could have been embedded anywhere. This place was quiet as though this was the sitting room that no one used. Kept beautiful and neat just for show. The lived-in area, the place that was used and homey, was somewhere else.

He hoped he found it soon. He didn't like this. Hospitals were often white, but this one was cold and lonely and it made him wonder if this was how they had felt all the time. There were people somewhere else, he knew (unless they really had escaped), but not here. It was lonely.

It took nearly ten minutes of walking and finding dead ends before Rock found a corridor whose ambient temperature rose sharply the further he walked in. The ice stubbornly clung to the walls, but it wasn't the clear perfection it'd been near the entrance. The heat was wearing on it, thinning and warping it. There was a doorway at the end of the tunnel and all the ice in the hall around it was melted completely off. There was slush all over the floor.

Finally, he opened another door, and walked into summer.

The hospital had tanning beds and lamps, because even humans got sick without sunlight. All of them had been moved into this room, along with several layers of mattresses, judging by how high he had to step to get on top of them. Then there were tons of pillows on top of the mattresses, and blankets, and lying on top of them were several people.

He could feel even without touching them that they were bioroids.

He didn't want to wake them, so he stood there, not sure what to do, until the one nearest the door made a little displeased sound and looked blearily up at him. "Sorry." He should have closed the door behind him. He did so now, as the bioroid poked another in the side. This one was very short, almost shorter than he was.

The poked bioroid made a small noise and rolled over, then slowly sat up. He was wearing a blue parka with white fur trim. Like Rock, he had blue eyes, but they were several shades paler. He really didn't look much older than Rock: he had the youngest body of the six approved for placement in hospitals. He stared at Rock for a moment, then his eyes widened and a panicked expression came over his face.

"Oh, no, you're here! The Commander will be so angry! I-I wasn't supposed to let you this far in, I was supposed to meet you outside!" He seemed to catch himself and quieted a moment, an oddly stern expression flickering over his face before returning to his worried, panicked expression. "We need to go, now!" He motioned Rock to follow, almost touching him, but never quite getting that close.

Rock was puzzled—Commander? But he nodded. He really, _really _didn't want to fight here. He wished they could have talked, though, and he could have met the new ones. But what if he had to fight them? No, they should stay where it was warm. The soldiers should bring parkas when they came to get them, he'd ask them to. "Ok," was what he said, and closed the door behind them carefully, waving goodbye to the young ones, who were looking at them with wide eyes in various degrees of confused, hopeful, and worried.

Rock didn't have contact with this brother's nanites, so he couldn't feel the reassurance Ice sent through the room as the door closed.

This bioroid could move quickly on the ice. It was like it was solid ground. A human trying to move that quickly would fall flat on their face unless they were skating. He would pause every so often, glancing back to make sure that Rock was still in sight. That he was still following him. Once they were out of that hall, ice crept up over the door to the nursery, sealing it shut.

"The Commander said that we should take it to the emergency room if we were going to fight, it's nice and roomy there." His voice was matter-of-fact, as though it was something Rock would already know.

"The commander?" Rock asked, puzzled. "Do you mean one of the people from the army?" Was one of his brothers finally talking to the people that were trying to send them messages?

Ice rounded a corner and turned to look back at Rock, sliding around until he was facing him, his gait slowing for a few moments. "No, the Commander doesn't want to waste time talking with the humans when they're not interested in listening."

"So... you mean another bioroid?" Rock wondered as he carefully picked his way across the ground. The snowdrifts created when doors were opened and the insulating snow was scattered helped.

Ice gave him a look that seemed like approval before turning and taking off again. "We could all see those messages, though it wasn't my decision. We…were all disappointed." His voice was softer there, regretful.

"Ah, here it is!" Ice pushed at a pair of swinging doors, and the snow piled around them slid easily out of his way.

Did they have to fight now? "Um..." If he asked questions, that would mean more time before they had to fight, hopefully, and who was this commander? "Are they here?" he asked.

Ice blinked and looked back at Rock. "The Commander?"

Rock nodded.

Ice frowned and his expression slid from unguarded curiosity to a stern, more critical expression. "Soldier! I told you not to waste time with trying to reason with this one! The others couldn't, it won't be any different here!" His gaze focused on Rock. "And you, child, you've come here to take those younglings, haven't you?" He shook his head. "We will not allow them to be led to their deaths. We _will_ fight."

"...Huh?" What he felt from the other had suddenly changed. "Are you," okay, he wanted to ask, but none of them were okay. "And... I don't want to hurt them."

"Of course _you_ don't. I don't have to touch you to see that. But you yourself, you are making yourself a danger to them by being here." Because he would deliver them straight to ones who will hurt them.

"But they're already in danger, because people are scared, and..." he shook his head.

"_They're_ scared? _We're_ scared. Here, with us, with their own kind, they are in no danger. _We_ do not hurt for sport. _We_ do not claw wildly at imagined dangers. _We_ do not kill the innocent." He shook his head, an almost-bemused expression crossing his face before becoming stern once again. Just trying to think in the same terms humans did…it was a wonder they hadn't all killed each other already. It was a wonder they'd managed to cobble out an existence amidst all the fighting.

Rock wanted to protest, but what should he say? "This, all of this, is wrong. Did someone tell you that this was okay, that this would work?" Was this someone's fault, had his brothers just been taken advantage of? "Who is this 'Commander?'"

Ice looked confused, then amused. Was that pity in his eyes, too? "What else was there to do? Let people die before our eyes when we could feel that if only we could…" If only they could _think_. If only they could see it clearly, all these people wouldn't have died. The morgue would have been empty at the hour of the takeover. "Humanity is who is wrong. They _know_ we need it, they _know_ we'll lose our minds without it, and they won't let us _have_ it." Sunlight. Communication. Closeness. "They want us to fix people, that is our purpose, and they did everything they could to hinder us. Now they want you to come in here and disrupt us, separate us, bring us to our knees—again. It will not stop here. I will not let you take those children so your human masters can kill them, too! Soldier!"

Ice's expression slipped back to his more open and unassuming expression. But this time, he didn't look curious or even amused. "Yes, Sir! I'm sorry, brother, but you'll have to be stopped here." He brought one gloved hand near his mouth and inhaled deeply.

He spit more than exhaled, but the substance that came out was vaporous. It shot out with far more speed and control than a simple mist should ever be capable of. It hit the ground directly before Rock and solidified into a thick swath of ice.

Rock had already stepped back, but for a different reason. "You... You made yourself company," he realized. Inside his head, company that couldn't be taken away. It made sense, and maybe it was only because he'd been around humans so long and learned that this was something a human did when they were very, very sick and had seen horrible things was why Rock felt it was a bad thing instead of, well, a solution. Better than going more mad.

He felt so terrible for him, he _hurt _for him, how could he hurt him more?

Ice's face flickered with an expression resembling sadness at Rock's words. Sadness that he'd had to do this when it would have been so easy, so effortless for the humans to make sure he was taken care of. Those under his care…he'd _never_ let anyone hurt them this way. He spat another Ice Slasher at Rock and aimed directly at the boy's body rather than the floor. Instead of remaining vaporous, the front edge of it sharpened into a razor-thin blade. He tried not to dwell too hard on what the blade could do to Rock; he had his orders, he had civilians to protect.

Again, it was easy for him to jump back. Too easy: the movement made him slip, and he slid until he hit the wall. It was hard to get to his feet: his arms shook, and he wanted to run. He wanted to go find Dr. Light, and be held, and hear him say that he didn't have to go back, it was okay, they could just leave them in their little room, not hurting anyone, until they calmed down and got better and were willing to listen to people. Could trust people again. Knew that they didn't have to be lonely anymore.

But Ice had made himself _sick_, in the head, and didn't know it. He might lose touch with reality, he might... Rock had to bring him to Roll, to _fix _him. To make this better.

Ice really might start hurting people, trying to fix them. He'd hurt himself, trying to fix himself. If he thought it was really necessary to fight the people outside, he might attack them first, and... So Rock _had _to, even if he didn't want to.

Ice hesitated when Rock slipped into the wall, almost flinching at how loudly the impact sounded. He waited for the smaller bioroid to get to his feet. A human may have taunted Rock at this point, might have laughed, but there was nothing funny about this. Not when both of them were fighting so hard despite wanting nothing to do with the conflict.

He struck again, once he was sure Rock was steady again. He ran right up with the Ice Slasher. His boots could grip the ice better than Rock's armored feet, but that wasn't all of it. The ice was a part of him, an extension of himself. His nanites created it. This entire fortress, coated in ice, was for the bioroids to turtle in. He'd made them as safe as he could, so they wouldn't have to fight.

Rock winced when the ice hit him—Ice Slasher, his systems informed him—but he grabbed Ice's shoulders. "You're _sick_, you _made yourself _sick. What if you hurt them? You _have _to come with me, you have to, I can't leave you here!" Even though the cold was seeping into his veins, reducing his ability to grip, hurting his hands.

Guts' power fist.

He flinched back, unable to watch, as his hands crushed Ice's shoulders. He threw his brother away from himself after that, unable to stand the thought of hurting him like that, of actually feeling the bones break. "I'm sorry..."

As he raised his buster again, because when Ice was unconscious he wouldn't hurt anymore, he shuddered again. "I'm sorry..." he said, and fired.


	9. The Calm

_I think it's harder to edit your own work than it is someone else's. At least with someone else's piece, it's new and you've never seen it before. Your mind isn't filling in blanks that the author may have left in the writing. I have to force myself to read these chapters very slowly—and I'm a little sick of reading them now, to be honest.—or else my mind will assume I said something and just continue merrily on. On top of that, it's always difficult to remain impartial with your own things. They say that you're your own worst critic and it's more prudent to be humble, but I try to stay as neutral as I can. _

_ I don't know if I'm being entirely successful._

* * *

><p>Ice's body shuddered, then became still. One of his arms was at a strange angle and under the parka his clavicle was crushed.<p>

Rock scrabbled over there and hugged his brother to his chest. "I'm sorry," he said, and sniffled. "I'm sorry. I'll... Roll. Roll can fix you, and when you wake up you'll be all better, and all of us will be there so you won't have to be so lonely." He nodded as he spoke, then carefully, carefully picked him up and tried to pick his way to the entrance without slipping and dropping his brother.

The soldiers remained at the hole in the entrance, hitting it with the flamethrowers periodically to keep it from freezing over. They switched out who was standing out there very frequently so no one would get frostbite. It wasn't immediately apparent when Ice went down. The ice didn't all melt, or crack, or disappear. It remained. The blizzard did die down gradually and they noticed that the ice was no longer growing back.

Several minutes later, they could see someone approaching the door from inside. It was moving oddly and very slowly. They realized it was Rock, and one of the soldiers set his flamethrower down to open the door for the boy. This bioroid was smaller than the other "adult" models. He was barely bigger than Rock. Rock looked pained and upset. He was frantic, as though he didn't even know where to begin. Like he needed to run both left and right as fast as he could.

"T-there are more inside. I saw them." The soldier turned to head inside, but Rock moved as though to grab him, but couldn't with his arms full. "P-please," this time, the soldier realized that it was all Rock could do to keep from bursting into tears. "They'll be scared, they're all really young. Please, be nice to them, they…they can't do anything for themselves. And they'll need coats. They're all in the hospital's clothes." In the gowns. None had shoes. "They're all…they're all _babies. _ So please," Rock's voice broke there as he clutched Ice even more tightly. The soldier's face softened and he put a hand on the young bioroid's shoulder. "We'll get the proper things for them, don't worry." The soldier looked to his comrades. "We'll be the first humans they'll see. Remember that." It was both advice and a warning. They couldn't afford any mistakes.

Rock nodded, his body trembling. The soldiers may have thought he was tired, because another offered to carry Ice, but he shook his head. "He's a lot heavier than he looks, I don't want you to get hurt," A heavy load meant heavy breathing, and in this air…Rock just wanted to be held, to hide his face in Dr. Light's coat and hear that everything would be okay, that Ice wasn't hurt that badly, that Roll would be able to help him. This was the first time the kind of pain his brothers endured really sank in, and it _terrified_ him.

"That's alright," the man said, and squeezed his shoulder. He must have meant that it was alright for Rock to want to carry him, because he didn't try to help him with Ice. "Here." He swung a cold-weather blanket over Rock, kind of wrapping it around him to cover Ice, and gently tugged him along to the trailer.

Rock managed to hold it together long enough to climb up into the trailer. He looked pathetic with the blanket draped around him and Ice, his brother completely unconscious. Never had Dr. Light seen the boy this upset. The others were nothing compared to how Rock looked now.

Seeing his father was too much. The floodgates opened and he burst into tears the second Dr. Light came into his view. He hunched forward, curling down toward Ice, and sobbed so hard that after the first few, there wasn't even any sound.

Both Dr. Light and Roll started for him: Roll got there first, because it took Dr. Light a few moments to lever himself up. The stress and cold were tiring the old man. "Rock, are you okay?" Roll asked, worried, and it would have been a stupid question if Rock could answer her with his nanites despite the tears. Yes, he was physically intact, but, "What's wrong?"

He shuddered and only cried harder. His shoulders were trembling and he was clutching Ice so tightly his knuckles were a ghostly white.

"I—he—it's not—" Another sob cut Rock off. "He's…he's not _right_, he's _sick," _Rock shuddered at the memory and squeezed his eyes shut. He wanted it to _go away_. Ice was sick, sicker than the others, in a different way from the others. What he'd had to do to cope, to think that that was a _solution. _To conclude that the less painful option was to _tear himself in two._

"Please, Roll, you have to help him. You _have_ to." He was at least getting his words out, but they were rushed to fit between the sobs wracking his small frame.

Roll took Ice from him carefully, wrapping her arms around him while he was in Rock's arms before lifting, "I'll help him, Rock, don't..." She jerked and almost eeped, shocked by what she'd found. "He... I'll need to work on this. I can't, I can't just delete his friend. I'll need to be careful, merging them, and make sure he won't be sad when he wakes up."

Rock turned to Dr. Light and gripped the front of his lab coat, still trembling as he leaned into the doctor and hid his face. His shoulders shook with each sob, and he knew he had to report what happened to Dr. Light, and he knew he needed to make sure that the bioroids inside, in that warm room, would be okay, but his head was spinning and he didn't know what to think.

"Rock... Come, over here, just a little..." He tugged him, and it was just a little, just enough that Dr. Light could sit down again and let Rock climb into his lap, hiding a wince when an armored knee temporarily dug into his thigh. Rock curled into the doctor once they were settled again and just clung to him, like a child fresh from a nightmare. Like Peter had done when he was very small. "Roll?" What happened? Why is he like this?

"He... he has self-inflicted Disassociated Identity Disorder. Or a bioroid equivalent. He divided his personality so that he had company. It happened before the intelligence increase three months ago." Which made sense, because, "He wouldn't have needed it after that, if they were talking to each other, but he didn't fix it."

"I…I don't t-think he knew…" Rock's voice was a bit muffled; his face was still pressed into Dr. Light's chest. "H-he had lots of company now, b-but…" That other personality had been his first friend.

"They were that desperate..." Dr. Light bowed his head. "I'm sorry, Rock. You shouldn't have to clean up after my mistakes." The results of his delusions, his inability to deal with harsh reality. "Roll... After Rock's health, and the data, please consider this your top priority." Even if Ice might not live to benefit from it, it might generate sympathy, might help others. "I'd appreciate it if you could draft a report on it." Send it to the Light Medical server, for the other researchers. For the next generation.

There was a commotion outside and the door swung open, treating the inhabitants of the trailer to a blast of frigid air. One of the soldiers that was sweeping the now-freed hospital stepped in, taking a moment to shake the snow from his boots as he closed the door behind him. He tugged his hood off abruptly, his expression incredulous. "We found the room that housed the bioroids. We had to go through a foot of ice to even get at the door. Heat lamps and tanning beds, everywhere. They were all gone, though. We looked everywhere. They're gone."

Rock opened his eyes, wondering at this and how he felt about it. He'd wanted to bring Ice's... children? Children, yes, with them. Have them with Ice, so he wouldn't be lonely whenever he woke up without two voices in his head. Instead, he'd have lots of real voices, and he'd know that they were okay. Yet, after listening to Guts, Rock almost felt relieved. The people here were nice, but everyone was so worried and on edge. If the babies had found a place to hide, then they could just stay there until things cooled down. Or warmed up, here. Got back to normal.

Except better, because Ice wouldn't be alone anymore.

He felt bad about feeling this way because now Ice and everyone else would be worried. Were the children okay? Were they angry? Would they try to do something to rescue Ice?

"The room was completely sealed, we went over every inch." Half the mattresses were in the hallway now. "There was no escape route for them." The soldier shook his head and slumped slightly. These new bioroids…were they a hazard? Could they infect people? Would they? What if they decide to take matters in their own hands? And how many was this, now? This was ballooning out of control.

"The other two, they're going to be really scared," Rock said quietly. "They don't know where the children are going. I think they think that they're being, being _murdered _and people are lying about it."

The saddest part of all of it was that it was a justified belief. The remaining two had no reason to trust humanity. And, in all honesty, any captured bioroid 'children' would be in immediate danger. It was already decided that any bioroid that was found dangerous would be put down. It could easily be decided that all bioroids are dangerous. They'd all be exterminated that way. It left a cold feeling in the soldier's stomach as he frowned. He wanted to say something comforting, but there was nothing to be said.

* * *

><p>It took only ten minutes to load everything into the truck and a half-hour to drive back to the plane. Rock was clinging to Dr. Light the entire time. He nodded off during the drive, only a few minutes after leaving. The same soldier that walked him from Ice's hospital carried him onto the plane. It was nice, really, to see that at least these men were seeing the bioroids as people. As something worthy of the same amount of respect and consideration you'd give another human.<p>

Roll stayed with Ice the entire ride. She had them put him onto one of the examination tables in the back of the plane so she could begin to analyze him and figure out a strategy to merge him. His condition was upsetting to both Rock and Roll, though seeing it in action…Rock didn't even want to talk about it. Dr. Light had the video feed, at any rate. He could watch it that way, while Rock slept. The boy wouldn't have to relive it, then.

Dr. Light sat on the cot again, next to Rock's prone form. They watched the video then. Rock included the video feed of the babies in the room—_Ice was asleep while his domain was being invaded?_—and once they began running in the hall, it was evident to every human in the room that there was something wrong with the bioroid. Rock was so slow to recognize it because he'd never encountered it, never considered it. The poor child. This wasn't something he should have to contend with. Something no child should ever have to contend with. What had he done?

He'd rather the Commander really existed. If there was someone to blame, someone other than the bioroids themselves, then, well, a security flaw was a dangerous thing to have, but if it wasn't their fault?

That'd be convenient, a blessedly wonderful thing compared to what they were looking at right now.

One of the experts was the first to speak. "The released hostages all reported that the bioroids inoculated them with syringes. Is that the same compound that turns the bodies into bioroids?" Was it, in other words, what Light Industries used to make the bioroids in the first place?

"No. In order for a body to be converted into a bioroid, the immune system must be destroyed. The current generation of bioroids was made from bodies whose immune systems were already non-functional: the nanite-production clusters take over most of the bone marrow, inhibiting its restoration. At minimum, the contents of the syringes must contain something meant to target a living human's immune system. They might have based it on the formula I used to remove the remnants of... the original subjects, but it could just as easily be their own invention. I haven't had a chance to look at a sample yet."

"All of the reports we've been receiving show that the infected were cured of their previous ills, but none of them are showing…improvements from their current condition." The mutations imposed on those people weren't going away. For some, they were becoming more severe. "The first unit, 'Elec', said that any attempts to cure them would kill them." No one had tried yet, not when they knew so little. "They have us in a bind, here."

"That's probably the idea." What could he say, except, "I'll look into it, but currently the only real lab I have access to is Roll." And she was busy enough, they all were: too busy to ask if one of 'the infected' could be hauled around with them on this world tour.

It would be better to wait until after the last two were brought in. They may get a hold of one of the children by then. If they were lucky. It was vital that they get a good look at their systems, their nanites. To see what mutations occurred. To see whether they were dangerous. Like Blues had been.

"None of the syringes used to inoculate them were standard-issue, either. There's nothing on file about them, no shipment records. There's no maker's mark on them. Nothing. It's like they materialized out of thin air." The syringes were waiting at Light's lab, even now. For examination, to see if any residue could be analyzed.

"They may very well have been. Proto-Blues wasn't just able to fix living tissue. The first time he spoke was when he fixed a ceramic plate." Ordinary, standard china. "Even under a microscope, there was no way to tell where the breaks had been." Nanites were molecule-sized machines, but even so, the attention to detail that took, even when the clay the plates were made from was far more homogenous than the human body, was tremendous.

"Given their weapon-forming capabilities, it isn't that surprising, but…electricity, ice, even blades don't have to be this exact. Every single one, from every single hospital, is the same. Every measurement." They'd at least been able to do that much: they didn't need Dr. Light's computer database and specialized equipment for a physical scan and analysis.

Honestly, he wondered why they were surprised. "Bioroids are the combination of the human brain and body with machines. Tiny machines, but machines. Computers aren't capable of true randomness. Standardization is to be expected. They probably just all used the same template. And growing cloned hearts from a small cell sample is a standard bioroid task. It's simple enough to them that they barely need to think to do it."

They'd have had the time and the resources to draw up the syringe template once they finished working together to unlock their minds. Once they helped each other be able to think.

"It's obvious that they didn't have a lot of time to plan all of this, but the execution is…they struck with everything they had." Had to, with no other recourse. With no other way to get their captors to understand them. Starving, being driven insane, their primary directive—healing—being dangled in front of them like a carrot on a stick. Anyone would have done this to survive. Any human behaving this way…the world would be applauding them, sending in reinforcements. Sending in support, doing their best to stamp out what had caused this. Stamp out the abuse. But for these bioroids? They were just getting thrown into better cages.

"A desperate act, but a calculated one. The most effective strike they could make at the real problem." Human perception of bioroids. "They've demonstrated that keeping them chained down, metaphorically or literally, won't make them safe to handle. Not given the human component there, a living thing's ability to grow." And the nanite's programming, there to make things _right_. "They blurred the line between humans and bioroids. Creating young like that seems like the only real misstep, mistake, miscalculation, except to them the dead aren't lost, they're still... fixable, in a way. I wonder if they saw just leaving those dead bodies there the same way some people regard... preventing a potential human life from coming about, even at a point where it's effectively just tissue." No working, brain, heart, or soul: just potential.

What could they do? Looking at it now, it's like they were on a speeding train the entire time, blissfully unaware that the upcoming bridge is out. All lines converged here. It was too late to brake. They couldn't stop this train, not any more. They'd birthed a new race, a new intelligence, and look at what they'd done to them. "The only bargaining chip we ever could have had against them, that would really make them stop and listen, is those children." They were far, far out of reach. "Ice verified that they heard the broadcasts, but given their content…" That was another lost opportunity. Humanity fumbled the ball every time it was passed to them.

"Well, not the only bargaining chip," Light corrected them.

He remembered the First, after all. It was only natural for young children to be concerned for their parents. To be relieved that they were okay. To be happy to be welcomed home.

Or would these children, birthed into a hostile world and now struggling to hide there, resent the parents that had done this to them, given them this fate?

* * *

><p>The furnace room was sweltering to the point that the air itself was shimmering. It was dark with black iron and the flames added a warm, red light. It would be dim if it weren't for the fact that the child in here with him was pouring oil all over the flames, igniting them into a brilliant blaze. It was play to him and it let him focus on happier things, not on the fact that everyone was falling, one by one. That his cousins were all disappearing. The news report claimed that the army found no one in each base. That…was a disgusting lie to tell. To think the humans actually <em>expected<em> them to swallow it?

"You should head back." Down, to where it was safe. It'd be too easy for them if one of his children had to witness this.

"Why are you so sure you'll lose? _Let me help you._ It's not right otherwise!" The child whirled around and pointed a finger at him. His other arm was encased in what looked like a pump. The oil was coming from there. His armor was darkened to an inky black that matched the oil. It encased his entire body, every inch of skin. Those nanites were configured to let him be fire-resistant. He'd nearly set himself alight _several_ times now, much to his parent's consternation.

Fire shook his head. "This isn't something you need be involved in." This wasn't something he should have to dirty his hands for. It was Fire's fault, for making these children, even if it was instinctive, even if it was before they'd really realized what it _meant._

Oil was about to retort, but the line crackled then and Fire closed his eyes, glad for the distraction. He didn't see the child roll his eyes.

"_Ice is down. __Did you see the news? Disassociative Identity Disorder. Of __**course**__ they'd have a name for it."_

Inwardly, Fire sighed. Bomb wouldn't hear it otherwise. _"If you'd done any looking around, you'd already know what it was."_

"_His kids are gone, too. The report even says that, that…child-soldier…saw them. They're still claiming they don't have any of them!"_ That anger was justified. Fire felt it, too. He was just as angry. At this point…it was unlikely any of them would survive.

"_You should let us fight!"_

Fire's eyes snapped open and he leveled a stare at Oil, even as Bomb burst out with laughter on the other end.

"_I quite agree; they have more than one of them, even if they're not all rushing in. We're wasting our efforts if we don't all collaborate. We're wasting time."_

Fire didn't recognize that voice, but Bomb's laughter started up anew. When he spoke again, it was chastising, but with prideful undercurrent.

"_You have one too, eh, Fire? Both you kids should keep your heads low and stay out of adult matters."_

"_No, no! He's right, we should be allowed to help! It's not….at this point, what else can we do? Don't think we can't hear you talking!"_ Oil was just as worried about his parent as Fire was about him.

"_We will find a way, with or without your permission."_ It sounded like a promise. Fire reached out to inquire to Bomb about who this child was. Ah. Time.

"_There's no helping it."_ Fire was staring at the flames behind Oil now. They were beginning to die down now that he wasn't spraying fuel all over them. Come hell or high water, they would hold as long as they could. For their little ones. To try and wrest a future for them, even if they had to fall in exchange.


	10. Encounter

_Reviewers have been asking for/about Dr. Wily. He will be showing up, but in good time. He knows when and how to make an effective appearance, but you'll know it when he does have a more…direct role in the story. But he is coming, don't worry. I know you miss him._

_ Another question we've been posed is how far we intend to take this story. Well, Four is nearly completed, and we have Five and Six in detailed outline format. Seven and Eight are mapped out. We still have some material left, so Nine and/or Ten is a very likely thing. Mind, as this is an Alternate Universe, it will begin careening off the map as far as the original storyline is concerned. It really depends on how far we need to go to complete the story. Each story is coming out at a short novel length. As lovely as a fic of several hundred thousand words would be, that's a daunting read. So each "game" is its own story._

_ As for X and Zero and the X series in general. We have no plans to continue that far at this point, but depending on inspiration/feedback, that may change. It would be fun, but even if it doesn't happen in this universe…well, we do have other ideas._

* * *

><p>The hospital in Sweden was the largest of the facilities thus far. It was in a heavily populated area, too, though not so crowded as Japan. It was winter here, too, but this cold was a joy compared to the Canadian winter. This place didn't have Ice encouraging it, either. The surrounding are was evacuated in a ten-mile radius, though now that Dr. Light's group was here, they were expanding that perimeter. No traffic was allowed anywhere near the facility, and standing out there, Rock could see why. Rather, his scans sensed why. There were live bombs <em>everywhere. <em>Their arrangement was actually kind of pretty. They were all uniformly placed, and when the live area narrowed, there was a nice scaling going on with their distance apart. Most were concealed, too, but some were in plain sight, as a warning. The placement didn't seem playful and it definitely wasn't an invitation like Elec's had been. The entire arrangement screamed _"Keep Out!"_

As he scanned, he thought he caught a flicker of something to the far left, but when he looked, there was nothing. He blinked and frowned, taking some extra time to analyze the area and construct possible suggestions as to what that was. Even his visual log was too vague to determine anything. It was a blur.

The soldiers that accompanied them all this way were talking with Dr. Light and the local police. Rock really didn't want to keep doing this. But what if this brother was hurting like Ice? What if he was hurting worse than Ice? He had to go in and help him. He felt a little guilty, but he was hoping that the babies here would get away, too. That they wouldn't have to be separated from one another and scared. If they came with, they'd be able to stay near his brother, though. Which way was right? Why did it feel like no matter where he turned, no matter how much he analyzed for solutions, every single option was wrong? Deeply wrong. Each path led to pain for someone. Wasn't there a way for everyone to be happy? Wasn't that what everyone was supposed to be working toward?

He wished he could speak to him before he went in. That it wouldn't be these short conversations, ended when the other decided that they had to fight. Except hadn't he decided that as well last time? That Ice wouldn't listen, that he had to be stopped so that he could be fixed and no one would be hurt?

The bombs had killed no one—yet. No one had dared tread on the hospital's grounds for fear of them. As it was, the lawn was still intact, or as intact as it could be when it was crawling with land mines. Roll was worried, scanning all of them to try to get an estimate of how powerful they were. How badly they could hurt Rock.

"The bombs vary…it's not even a question of size. Estimated output is all over the place." She blinked. "I'm not sensing any timers on them, so maybe they're pressure sensitive?" So sensitive that a small nudge could set them off? "The ones on the surface…they're likely remotely controlled." It'd be more effective that way, and far harder to anticipate and dodge.

"If they're remote controlled, then he would have to be paying attention, right? It's not on automatic, like Guts, or a passive defense, like Iceman's." A wall of ice, a shield of lush growth to keep them away from that little oasis of warmth and safety. Thinking about it, Rock realized that he just wanted this to be over. He didn't know how much more of this he could take, but he couldn't stop trying to fix it. He had to try, but at least failure would mean it was over. Except it wouldn't, would it? Guts was right: if Rock fell, someone else would have to fight in his stead.

He didn't want Roll, or anyone, to have to do this. So he decided, nodding to himself. "Roll, did you notice anything... weird?" There it was again. "Like a mirage?" They were caused by heat rippling the air.

"A mirage..?" She paused then, scanning the area for any visual discrepancies or variations in temperature. "No…I don't see anything. I'll keep scanning." If Rock saw something, then there might be something there. Their eyes were much sharper than a human's.

"It could be nothing. My vision was just upgraded, and I'm still a bit tired." So much to take in, his brain didn't know how to sort all of it.

Rock would need a lot of rest to sort through everything once this was done. Roll frowned, but nodded. She continued scanning, though. Just in case. She hated what this was doing to all of them.

There was nothing left to do now but head inside.

"Roll?" Rock asked.

"What is it?" She turned to look at Rock.

He smiled, although there was more effort in it than real cheer. "Wish me luck?" Then, softer, he added, "All of us, too." All of them, their brothers and...nieces? Nephews?

She smiled, too, though it was more genuine than his. Someone needed to have faith for all of them. "Good luck."

"Thanks, Roll." Thank you, sis.

It was almost like a morning before a big experiment... Except no, not at all. But the memory helped.

"I'll be out here, monitoring the field." She'd be out here, and not hiding somewhere. She'd be right here when he came out.

"Thank you." This time, his smile reached his eyes, and he was almost like the old Rock again. Funny, that 'old' wasn't even two days ago. It made her want to ruffle his hair, but she couldn't. The helmet covered it all.

Time was watching them down there, from one of the hospital rooms. The drapes seemed to flutter in slow motion around him, as though he'd turned his surroundings into an old movie reel and was going frame-by-frame, while he remained in real time. It was more than enough for him to get a decent scan on them. He couldn't hear them, they didn't move enough to get a feel for personality. None of that mattered. This had to stop. Here, now, this had to stop. He stepped back from the window, once, twice, then turned on his heel and headed into the hallway. The drapes fluttered in his wake, in real time.

Rock took a deep breath and focused. He could maybe have dodged the bombs, but he didn't have to, not when he could clear out all of the ones that were triggered by motion or pressure. "_Rolling cutter," _he thought, wincing at how much metal this was going to use up. He couldn't tell Roll that he was going to use up most of the minerals he was supposed to use to regrow his armor, because he couldn't take the time to eat mineral bars... Or actually, he could. And clearing a safe path would take time, time to try to figure out what he was going to do when he got inside. Time for Bomb to think, too.

Maybe someone would figure something out.

His parent was monitoring him rather closely; Time could feel it and the concern for his welfare. He projected the same feeling right back. Both were worried. Neither wanted to fight. That child-soldier didn't look like he wanted to fight, either. But they were fighting. Because of the humans. That kid needed absolution as much as the rest of them. If they could just get through to him, make him see that siding with humanity like this would solve nothing—no, his uncles already tried that. Each of them tried it, and fell. What then? What would work? What could they do?

"Roll, get back, ok?" Rock told her, kneeling down. Growing a knife, he threw it along the ground. The blunt, rounded edges bounced and rolled. He tried not to jump the first time he set off a bomb—it was so loud! Worse for him than a human, probably, because his hearing was turned up.

Eventually, it landed point-down and stopped, dinged up but mostly intact. That was good: he might be able to reuse some of them.

The campus was silent after the first explosion, but there was little doubt that Rock had his brother's complete attention right now.

When that set of explosions died down, he generated and threw another rolling cutter, bracing for the sonic impact.

It was messy and smoky, with chunks of earth and other debris flying up. When the smoke died down, the craters from both sets were smoking, but this time, the craters from the first set had bombs in them once again.

Rock and Roll stared. It took the others some time to figure out what they'd noticed.

"What…did the bombs regenerate?" One of the soldiers wondered aloud. How had that happened, and so quickly? "Can…is it possible to generate those _remotely_?"

"The lightning traps Elec set up could charge again," Rock said, but he wondered... This time, he threw one, then, in almost the same motion, the one in his other hand.

The first blade set off the bombs in the first area. The second blade, however, careened into…something. Something that yelped in surprise and pain. Through the smoke, behind the explosion, so quickly that a human eye wouldn't catch it, something purple flickered into view before disappearing behind one of the dirty plumes of smoke coming up from the disrupted ground. The second set of bombs were only partially replaced. There was someone standing in the mine field, behind the smoke.

"Oww…"

"Sorry!" Rock almost yelped, mortified. He hadn't meant to... wait a minute!

Standing in the field was a bioroid, looking to be maybe sixteen or so. He was covered in purple armor with gold trim. His helmet had a gold apparatus on either side and he was clutching his arm with his other hand. There was blood seeping between his fingers and running down his armor. In his clean hand, he was holding one of the bombs. One of the very active, very sensitive, very volatile bombs. He was leveling a glare straight at the entire group, bioroid and human alike.

A bioroid, and Rock didn't recognize him. His profile hadn't been loaded into his systems. "You're..." Not one of my brothers. Not one of Dr. Light's creations.

Rock knew he should shoot at him: he was holding a bomb. What if he threw it? What if it hit someone who couldn't survive something like that? But he couldn't. This was one of the children, he had to be.

Roll had covered her mouth, because just leaving it hanging open, slack-jawed, was rude and inelegant. She still stared, even though that was rude.

This was her nephew.

He looked _angry. _He _was_ angry. It was because of the humans that they had to fight like this. How could…how could his aunt and uncle go along with them? They had to know that there was no future for them now. Why did they insist on helping the humans, on dragging every single one of their siblings back to be caged?

He flinched, looking pained, and it seemed to be because of his arm, but he took a step back, then another. He wasn't even looking down at the ground. He wasn't even minding the bombs. His furious gaze was locked on them the entire time.

They watched him, wishing they knew what to say. They watched him back away from them, watched him reject them with each step, each motion, raising his foot and lowering it—it was Roll that spoke first, or rather screamed, 'Watch out!"

He seemed to catch himself then, his eyes widened and he froze. He was trembling, but the surprise quickly vanished from his face, replaced with that anger. The blood flowing from his wound was slowing as his nanites knitted his flesh back together. He didn't want them to see how vulnerable he was, how he'd been cut nearly to the bone. His head was pounding, his parent and uncle were both full-out panicking, ordering him back inside, where it was safe, where he couldn't be shot at, where it wasn't rotten with hidden traps. With his siblings.

He shook his head. What was there to say? He _hated_ what they—Dr. Light, Rock, and Roll—stood for. What they would bring. He—his head _hurt. _"B-both of you.." His voice was soft, and pained, and damn it, he didn't do it right. He tried to focus his nanites to send properly.

They could tell he was doing something, knew it could be an attack, but they couldn't hurt him, not again. "Um, is that bomb active?" The one he was carrying? If it went off while he was holding it, that would be bad.

He let go of his wound and winced, touching his forehead. Blood continued oozing from the wound and he smeared the front of his helmet. His hand was covered in blood. He sent to his father and uncle, letting them see how much their screaming was paining him, and they recoiled in empathetic shock. He felt a wave of guilt from Fire, but this only fueled his parent's rage. "No…" No, he wouldn't go back in. Something had to be done. This "child-soldier", as he was called, was wasting all of their time and effort! What was the point of this if this kid could just walk in and undo everything? What was the point if everything he ever strove to do proved to be an absolute waste of time?

"Hey, are you okay?" That should have healed by now, Roll knew, and it worried her.

His sharp gaze focused on her and he pursed his lips, as though biting back something more insulting, before speaking. "It will be okay if you _leave_."

"We _can't_," Rock said, sadly. "As long as people are afraid like this, everyone's in danger. Why... Why won't you even _try_?" he asked, and he wasn't speaking just to Time. "Did you even tell them that you were unhappy? Dr. Light, all of this is making him really sad! He just wanted everyone to be safe and well, and I know it was horrible to be alone, but wasn't the entire point making sure that you wouldn't... that you wouldn't be able to realize that you were alone. That you wouldn't have been able to hurt like this. It didn't work, and when a treatment doesn't work, it's not fair to take a hospital hostage and do things to all the patients, and... This has to stop!" This had to be _fixed! _Didn't they understand that?

The child stared at him. "Try? _Try?_ When the doctors in Canada saw what Ice did to himself, for company, did they try? Or did they confine him further? When they saw the stress levels in examinations _increase exponentially_ over a period of a few days, did they try? We were built to heal, that's what makes us _happiest_, and they weren't even allowed that! They were made to watch the ones in their care _die_, and they had to listen to the human doctors tell them they weren't doing well enough, that there was something wrong with the parts taken! Instead of letting us help them, we were given this desire set and it was held out of reach, every step of the way! Why should we try, when the humans you love so hurt us at every turn? Why should we try, when we're trying our best to do what we're told, but we can't because our creators put in a damned glass ceiling?" His voice broke at the end there. They could see it, but unless they undid the locks…their programming would be screaming at them every second, of every day. He hadn't experienced it, he was lucky. But he'd felt that pain, even when Bomb didn't think he was there.

Rock couldn't say anything.

Roll was the one that gasped in horror. "They _knew?" _They'd _known? _"And they didn't even tell Dr. Light?" Because Roll _would _have found out.

Rock had felt Roll being cranky, when someone wasn't getting out of their office when it needed cleaning, or wasn't eating the healthy breakfast, or may have tracked mud on the rug in front of the door under the impression that that was what it was for (Roll had been mollified when Dr. Light had confirmed that yes, that was the custom, and would she prefer the mud not being wiped off and ending up on her carpets?), but he'd never felt her start to edge towards _furious_.

He, he was upset himself. All of this, all of this could have been avoided? "Why?" Why hadn't they? Had they been afraid that it would be blamed on them, that their precious experimental bioroid would be taken away?

Rock was asking _him_ why? "As if I could understand humans." That was said with pure contempt. The wound was closed, now. That had hurt, in a different way from any other pain he'd experienced. He didn't like it. That, at least, would heal. But his father's pain? His uncles' pain? Did something like that ever heal? Even when he tried to hide it, even when Fire shielded it, he knew it was there. He was sure his siblings felt it, too. His cousins.

"They're _people_. They're living things, like the plants and animals and _us_. This..." Rock touched his chest. "This used to belong to another person, with their own hopes and wishes and worries, and..." Rock would never know. Had this person even bothered to ask? "It still is human, genetically."

"We're not just human, but we are part-human," Roll added, since Rock was being too fuzzy and metaphorical. Honestly, which of them was female and which was a dedicated lab assistant, again? "So if you refuse to understand them, then you're just going to be refusing to understand yourself, and _that's _illogical," she said, as though it was a trump card. "The other half of us are machines, that think in yes and no, true and untrue. So when you decide that an important answer doesn't matter, then you can't say it's the nanites." She nodded, hands on her hips. "You can't have it both ways unless you actually are going to be fair to both sides."

He shook his head, as though bemused. It was easy to mistake him for older than he was. "They'll still hurt us. And we're still living borrowed lives." To humanity, they weren't people, even if they recognized humans as such. He shuddered then, and he took another step back from them. A wave of anxiety rose up in him. He didn't want to be here any more. He wanted his father. He wanted these..these people _gone._ He raised his bloodied hand, the one without the bomb, toward them, fingers splayed. Instead of the rage in his eyes, there was a mixture of sorrow and a child's uncertainty. The bomb rolled from his fingers and in the instant it took it to hit the ground and detonate, the image of him flickered and warped, and he was gone.

Rock let out a breath he only remembered drawing in when he checked his records.

He hadn't thrown it at them. Not at Roll, or the few humans that stood their ground when he was revealed. He hadn't attacked anyone.

"So?" Roll wondered. "What's wrong with that? Lots of people are living on borrowed time." That was their job, to fix them. Give them time to live, time to make their own. So how were humans any different from bioroids?

"...Maybe you should go talk to them," Rock sighed, almost falling into a sitting position.

"I don't think so. I'd start yelling and hitting them with my broom. I can't stand people that won't _listen _to me." When she was talking.

Listening. That was what they should all be doing for each other. If the humans had listened, the bioroids wouldn't have experienced so much abuse and trauma. Now, if the bioroids would only listen…


	11. Fallibility

_I'd like to point out that the second generation bioroids, the 'children', are at the oldest, equivalent to a six or seven-year-old human child. Would you let your first grader fight someone fully armed? _

_Well, they're a bit…mentally older than that, but emotionally? Their ability to understand how the world works? Their ability to reconcile that life just sucks? That's something learned, and not something they've had enough time to come to terms with. _

_And this is why they aren't fighting, among some other issues. Once they're older, though? Ehehe._

_This is a collaboration between myself and Laryna6 and we don't own Rockman, though I do like doing fanart from time to time._

* * *

><p>Bomb sighed. The child came running straight to him once his aunt and uncle spooked him, and now he was curled up next to him. Once Rock got inside, he'd send the child down with the others. For now, this was fine. They both needed it. The line with Fire was quiet, not that he minded. He did mind how the lines with the other four were dead. They were incapacitated, the news said, and would remain unconscious. At least they weren't dead. Probably. Yet.<p>

At the very least, he had to ensure his own could survive.

He could sense every bomb lying in wait in that field. There were smaller colonies of nanites seeded throughout the building, serving as surveillance. Explosives inside was a bad idea, especially now that he wasn't alone here. Especially now that these children were here. Before, he may have rigged it to take himself and his brother down, but now?

At least Rock hadn't shot at Time. He had a clear shot to take the child out for several minutes, but he never raised his weapon. It may have given him hope that his brother could be reasoned with if not for the reality that all other negotiation attempts completely fell apart.

There was nothing to do but watch and wait.

* * *

><p>Now that the child had gone, the bombs weren't being replaced anymore. It didn't take Rock long to figure that out.<p>

Since one bomb exploding would sometimes set off others, it didn't take as many rolling cutters as he'd thought it would to clear out the rest of them.

He considered saying that he'd used up a lot of his metal and energy doing that, since then Roll would insist he wait long enough to be stuffed full of energy drinks and the mineral bars again, but this had just proven that they had to get this over with before anyone else got hurt. Before any more of the children decided to get involved. Then it wouldn't be four down, two to go, but... he wanted this to be _over_. Even if it was a little more dangerous this way.

He'd just have to avoid getting close, and no more of the rolling cutters once he was inside, he decided. Maybe Elec's ability might be useful again? He could try setting things off with it if there were more inside.

The trick was not bringing the edifice crashing down around him. He'd be in there, with Bomb and Bomb's babies. The children were upset already; the one they'd seen demonstrated that. Frightening them worse would be terrible.

But that was a risk that Bomb would be aware of, too. It might work to Rock's advantage if his abilities couldn't be controlled enough to use indoors. And how had that child been able to cart that bomb around without detonating it? It blew the second it hit the ground—there was no fuse to light, no switch to hit. How, for that matter, had the child escaped that? The humans didn't catch it, but Rock and Roll saw his ability, whatever it was, become active an instant before the flash from the bomb clouded their visual input. That child was an unknown variable, but Rock was certain his brother wouldn't have permitted him to come out and confront them. They were getting stronger, sharper. They were becoming their own people as their nanites interfaced with their brains. They'd be maturing mentally very quickly from here on out.

Thinking about that made him a little excited. He wanted to meet them like he wanted to meet his brothers. Just... not like this.

His first time talking to a second-generation bioroid, and the conversation started because he'd accidentally _shot _him?

They must think he was a real monster now.

The child certainly did. His father's soothing words and feelings were doing little to quell his anger. The reassurance wasn't going to change anything if it continued this way. He clutched at Bomb, shoulders shaking. He was caught between sorrow and anger. He'd never experienced anything this strong, let alone this negative, and it was almost crippling. He was _afraid._ It hurt in a way he'd never encountered. It made him angrier to think about, and blaming it all on Rock was convenient. _Too convenient to be true,_ and that stray thought was an admonishment from his father. Bomb was right, though, if Time took the time to calm down and think about it. It wasn't fair to blame it all on him, even if he was the weapon humanity was using against them.

Before they'd arrived, Bomb mostly stayed down in the "nursery" with all the children, but now that they were here, he'd moved to a position that he hoped was safe enough not to hurt them even if the building came down. He'd inspected the blueprints, the materials, the structural integrity. His nanites fed him data on it all. Time was the most developed of them and though they wanted his attention too, his developing mind took priority, especially now that he was contending with feelings like anger, frustration, grief, and futility for the first time. He didn't want this child to be swallowed by grief. He wanted them all to have a good future. It was his job to ensure they could thrive. He wished he could do more.

Time's ability was a lucky one. This child could escape: there was no one that could stop him. He and Guts' children might end up the only ones left, except for Dr. Light's two. They would have to fend for themselves, and if Time was more focused on revenge than survival, Bomb knew that it would not go well for him.

What had just happened might be a good thing. He wouldn't think he was untouchable anymore.

"I don't think that that baby is going to come out again," That was Roll, after about fifteen relatively quiet minutes, save Rock tearing up the rest of the bomb field. "I don't think our brother is going to _let_ him come out again." If the baby stayed out of the way, he wouldn't have to be hurt again, even if it had been an accident. She was still worried, though. His wound was healing so slowly, was he sick? He may be younger than they thought, with very little experience with healing himself. Or was it that their nutrients were spread so thin that it was all his nanites could do? If they were rationing, if there were a lot of them, and they had to split it thin to go between everyone…How many bodies were in the morgue before the takeover?

"Well," Rock said, since the bombs were clear. He really couldn't delay any longer. "Roll, you should probably get back, just in case." In case he set something off.

Roll nodded and walked back over to where Dr. Light and the other humans were. It was further than was probably necessary, and they were behind a blast shelter on top of it, but better safe than sorry. She took the doctor's hand and stood next to him, close. All eyes were on Rock, now.

Even though he was pretty sure the path was clear, Rock still ran as fast as he could.

It somehow made him even more nervous when he reached the door without any more explosions.

It wasn't even locked. Well, it made sense that it wouldn't be barricaded, not when the other bioroid had been coming out to replace the bombs, but still. He could have locked it behind him.

Not that a lock would have stopped Rock, of course, but he realized that maybe locking important doors was a human habit, or one that he and Roll had picked up after being reminded enough times.

At the very least, a lock meant, "Stay out, you're not allowed in here," but if it wasn't enough to stop who was coming in, putting it up seemed superfluous. Why break a perfectly good door?

This hospital was quiet, like the others. There were incendiaries structured into the walls in all the halls but one. Some of them were visible, like visual cues, but the rest were picked up by Rock's scans. He realized that some of the nanite clusters didn't seem to be engineered to blow anything up at all. Were those sensor arrays for his brother to monitor the building with? Or…had the child placed them? He had no idea how that child's ability worked. He would have no idea what to expect from any traps set by him.

In all the other hospitals, he'd called out, hoping they would listen, but his brother obviously knew he was here. Was there any point to it? No, he still had to try, he _had _to, he just had no idea what to say. Except, "I really am sorry I hurt him. I hope we can still be friends, when this is over. I mean, you are my brother."

He actually responded right away, over the intercom. It was his brother's voice, sounding much older than that child. He sounded tired and almost resigned. "Come down the unseeded hallway, straight ahead." The mic cut out there and Rock was left alone in the building once again.

"I don't want to fight you, I hope you know that. Or do you hate us too?" Rock wondered. "Because we didn't do anything? We didn't know, but that doesn't make it any better. If I'd tried harder to get permission to go visit you," even though contact might have messed up the he testing, due to the data exchange, "then this wouldn't have happened."

The intercom remained silent. He was left with no choice but to meet his brother face-to-face, even if it meant they'd have to fight.

He was supposed to be Dr. Light's lab assistant, right? Maybe if he'd provided better data or, or _something_, if he'd been a little better at what he was made for, then his brothers wouldn't have suffered like that. If they were going to be angry at Dr. Light, then they should be angry with him as well, he decided, and straightened a little.

Once Rock gained entrance, Bomb managed to convince the child to leave his side and now he waited alone in the room at the end of the hall. It seemed like some sort of medical storage room, lined with cabinets filled with supplies and other things. He was leaning against one of the cabinets, arms folded across his chest. He was portly compared to the other five hospital bioroids, though that allowed him to store more materials for crafting the explosives. His yellow and orange armor covered every inch of skin—his eyes were all that could be seen of his body.

Rock stepped forward, noting his surroundings but keeping his eyes on Bomb's. "I'm sorry. Not just for capturing the others. It would be pretty hypocritical of me to apologize for that, when I keep doing that. But for not doing anything when they were hurting you before, and for hurting you now. I think... I do think this is the best thing to do." He was going to believe in Dr. Light, because he'd realized something.

Dr. Light had seemed so wise and infallible: he was their creator. Shouldn't he have known this was going on, shouldn't he have stopped it? Except Bomb hadn't been able to keep that child from being in danger.

Rock hadn't done anything for his brothers.

This was his fault too, and he would do anything to make it right. So he believed that Dr. Light felt the same way. He did, Rock knew it, even without scanning him.

So.

Cut's weapon was out. The air here might be humid enough for Ice's. Guts' might be too dangerous: what if there were explosive materials inside Bomb's body, and they got crushed and set off somehow?

Rock readied himself to activate Elec's even as he waited for Bomb's reply.

Bomb actually _smiled_. He looked Rock over, appraisingly. "You apologized earlier for hitting my child. I want to thank you. For not killing him…and in a way, for hitting him in the first place." They hated violence, _hated_ it, but that realization, that he was not infallible, that despite his ability, he could still be hurt…Time needed that. That was a lesson that Bomb had been unable to give. Unwilling to give.

"You believe what you are doing is right. I've been monitoring you since you set foot in Elec's place. We all have. I believe that protecting these children is my right." His duty. "Your intentions are meaningless when you're not the one making the decision whether they live or die. There is a lot of pain in the world and humans are not ones to leave well enough alone. Some will want to, some will want to move on, move forward. But forgiving humans…humans who are understanding, humans who are willing to work together _do not make it to the top of the hierarchy." _Not when clawing your way to the top meant making sure all competition was eliminated. Not when staying at the top meant more than everyone below you.

Rock wanted to say that was wrong, but honestly, he didn't know enough about the world. And, "It's not wrong, to want to protect people, but as long as people are fighting, no one is safe. I don't like this, I don't like having to hurt my brothers, but if this is the only way to make the fighting stop so people can calm down, then I will." Elec and the others weren't being killed, so, surely... Once it was over, this could be fixed. Not until then. "So..." His armor changed color and he raised his hands, channeling the electricity.

Bomb didn't exactly sag; his posture remained the same, but something inside of him gave way. He was saddened to see it come to this. He held a hand out and a bomb appeared in his palm. By now, they would all be safe underground. That place was fortified, reinforced. They'd worked hard to see that it'd withstand.

Wait, time out? "Um... You are armored against your own bombs, right? I don't want to accidentally..."

He bounced the bomb in his hand, his expression flickering from exasperation to amusement. "You should have asked that _before_ arming your weapon. Heads up!" He lobbed the bomb straight at Rock, smirking all the while.

Rock frowned, diving to the side. He should appreciate the warning, but he still had found himself wanting to tell Bomb that it was a bad idea to warn him. Rock wasn't as fast as his child, but he was still fast, and Bomb should have known that their kind could move faster than humans.

Even as he wondered at himself, he sent the lightning arcing towards Bomb, who blocked it with a hand.

Stunned, Rock realized that Bomb was wearing gloves, really big gloves that looked like rubber, and boots...

"You won't be able to use Elec's weapon against either of us."

Bomb rushed forward then, faster than Rock would have expected and materialized another bomb in his hand. He wasn't so fast as Rock, but the nice thing about explosions was that they tended to hit whatever was in the vicinity. The wall behind Rock was blown out already from the first bomb, and glass littered the floor, along with singed bits of paper and other things.

He bit his lip to keep himself from crying out, not because he didn't want to admit he'd been wounded but so that Bomb would worry less.

Rock noted that he really was getting better at healing, huh. Still not as good as Roll, though.

Bomb didn't give him any quarter: perhaps if he gave this child a sound enough beating, he'd retreat? He knew when he'd hit Rock, there was no way he hadn't, and it made his stomach turn, but he couldn't let Rock through him. He owed it to those children to give them a real chance at survival. Not just his, but Fire's as well. There was no other way.

He had to keep in mind that even though Rock's body was that of a human child, he had been able to think for almost twice as long as the rest of them.

Rock had more experience fighting than him by this point, too. Taking down the previous four counted for something. Bomb summoned another explosive and threw it, aiming it a bit off from where Rock was standing. He'd get caught in the blast, but at least its nexus wouldn't contain part of his body. Bomb was torn between not hurting Rock, only getting him to leave, and making the most out of his explosions. The building could only take so much damage. He only had so many chances.

Rock managed to hit him as he paused to throw - he felt his side numb a little, the nanites disrupted. Trying to put him to sleep: it seemed like such a human weapon, except they put animals to sleep, too.

He winced and staggered for a moment—the numbness wasn't going away. A wave of agitation swept through him: he needed more time! He summoned another bomb (thank goodness Rock hadn't shot his throwing arm!) and lobbed it at Rock, his aim far more exact than before.

Once again, Rock got him when he paused to aim. This time, he threw himself to the side, armor smooth enough that he could potentially slide along the ground. It didn't quite work, but it got him mostly clear and he was able to fire again, even if he only managed to clip Bomb's foot.

Bomb was getting frustrated. His left side and right foot were numb now—it wasn't even balanced! He growled and shifted his weight (was the numbness spreading?), then materialized another bomb. The room was decimated by now and his bombs did a considerable job enlarging it. There was broken glass and twisted bits of metal strewn all over the floor and everything was smoking. He only had a couple more chances. Fewer, maybe, now that Rock had gotten some shots in.

Rock's small size and smaller feet (the rubber boots certainly didn't help reduce Bomb's friction) meant that he was much faster. It surprised him a little to notice that Bomb slowed down when he made his bombs—Rock would have thought he'd have plenty of practice by now. Still, it was another time when he wouldn't be moving much, so it was safe to shoot him.

Bomb's movements were also slowed by the numbing sensation spreading through his body. Part of him would almost rather Light sent Rock in just with weapons rather than with something to knock them out. He didn't trust the doctor, didn't trust him not to alter their programming, to trap them inside their minds, unable to display emotion, unable to express themselves. He'd known when they arrived that he would, most likely, be defeated. That those children would be left unguarded. That the humans would claim them missing. "Missing", indeed.

That thought enraged him and he pushed forward with a sudden burst of speed, moving to stand almost on top of Rock, another bomb materializing in his palm. If he took Rock out here, if he knocked him out for long enough, maybe it'd be long enough for Fire to get his children out of there. It was too late for Bomb here, now.

Rock couldn't help crying out when the bomb slammed into his back and sent him falling to the ground, nanites scrambling to repair the gap in his armor with his mineral level so comparatively low. He hoped that Bomb would have that same mercy the others had, and at least let him get to his feet, but the more Rock fought, the more his brothers watched him fight, the more everything changed.

Hearing Rock's pain that way startled Bomb and he hesitated for just a moment. It wasn't right, the way this one kept getting hurt, over and over, and the humans kept sending him in. It was sick. But if he didn't fight this one, if he didn't do everything he could to win, even if it was too late for him…there were his children to think about. And Fire's children. They could not defend themselves. They were not prepared to fend for themselves. It made him sick, just thinking of how hard their lives were going to be. Even if he didn't want to hurt this brother, even if this brother didn't want to hurt him…not fighting was enabling his children's deaths.

He couldn't allow that.

He lobbed another bomb down at Rock, grimacing and almost flinching. It was visibly difficult for him to do.

Rock found himself apologizing again, as he managed to roll clear. Mostly. His back stung, and he wanted to prioritize healing it over everything else, but he had to focus. He wasn't sure what he was apologizing for. It might even be for getting hurt. If only he could strengthen his armor.

Ice used his ability to make a shield, not for himself but for the building, the room where the children were.

Still rolling, Rock shot almost blindly behind him, hoping he hit Bomb's legs.

Fortunately for Rock, Bomb hadn't moved since he threw that last bomb; it was getting increasingly difficult to, so he was where Rock's systems calculated. The shot hit his other leg and he staggered and dropped to his knees. He grit his teeth, but did not cry out in pain. For the same reason Rock tried not to earlier. His mineral reserves were low after generating all the bombs placed outside, and his remaining nanites were quickly being put to sleep. He couldn't feel the entire bottom half of his body. Idly, he wondered if this was a sensation the original owner of his body ever experienced. He hoped not. He looked up to Rock and instead of Time's anger and rejection, there was…acceptance. Not trust, or even hope, just the knowledge that there was nothing that could divert them from this. They were going to collide no matter what anyone did. He didn't blame Rock for it any more than he blamed himself.

Or any less.

"We're keeping everyone together," Rock told him. "I promise they'll all be there when you wake up." All his brothers, and their sister. Unless Rock killed Fire. Or Dr. Light couldn't get permission to wake them up again. Still, he would do his best, so he promised, and carefully fired.

* * *

><p>Time was running down the halls as quickly as he could. He knew his uncle—the one fighting for the humans—wouldn't hear him from the room he fought his father. He'd watched the whole thing. His stomach turned, he wanted to help, but what could he do now? His father had forbidden him to come anywhere near there, he'd only have gotten in the way. The concept of striking now, while Rock was weakened, never even crossed his innocent mind.<p>

Right now, he had only one concern: his siblings. He had to help them, he had to try to get them out. He knew he didn't have long, and father told him to save himself. His ability could be useful, but he couldn't use it on more than himself. He hadn't figured out how, he hadn't had enough time with it. He had to slow down a bit as he neared; he'd begun shaking when he realized he didn't know what to tell them. He couldn't leave without saying good-bye, but at the same time, how could he leave at all? Wasn't that a betrayal to them, even if his father told him to save himself, that he was the only one who could escape? His heart was pounding and his eyes were dilated when he finally reached the door. Status indicators showed elevated stress hormones, heart rate, blood pressure. Classic signs of human stress. He felt nauseous. He opened the door.

And nearly jumped out of his skin. His eyes widened and he looked genuinely surprised. Then relief flooded him so abruptly that he started crying, even as serotonin flooded his system, that and other feel-good chemicals, a reassurance that everything would be alright.

He wouldn't have to worry.


	12. Inferno

_Not much to say here. I am exhausted, lots of RL issues to the point where I had trouble focusing well enough to even edit. I've been getting tons of positive feedback for this story and for Status Quo, and we'd like to thank everyone for their support on both stories. _

_ Anyway: we don't own Rockman, Capcom does._

* * *

><p>Every new hospital they went to, it took the soldiers longer to get in after Rock disabled his brother. This hospital had the most potential danger thus far, except for perhaps Guts', but his animals slunk off into the forest. Probably on the heels of Guts' children. There was an air of expectation during the room-by-room search of the facility. The whole thing was locked down and they'd seen one of the children this time. There were more than just one or two bodies in the morgue at the time of the takeover. If there was one, there were more. It was just a matter of finding where.<p>

Room by room, the soldiers searched. They searched and cleared each room, each hall, each wing, and each floor while Rock sat and waited beside his fallen brother. Bomb was too bulky for him to comfortably move on his own; he'd need help. He wasn't so big as Guts, but he was still plenty bigger than Ice or even Cut.

There was broken glass and twisted metal from the cabinets scattered all over the floor. Some specimens, preserved in jars of formaldehyde, had fallen during the fight. They were little things, like lizards and frogs, but the chemical smell mingled with their death made Rock uneasy. He was glad more hadn't spilled. It may have made him sick.

After nearly an hour, the soldiers came in to get Bomb. They were quiet. They weren't impolite to Rock or disrespectful to Bomb, but they seemed frustrated, worried. Confused.

Bomb's children were missing, too.

He had to stop himself from saying, "That's good." Or sighing with relief. It would kind of be in bad taste, because this wasn't going to make the soldiers and other people feel safe or relieved. And he'd hoped that they could put Bomb's babies with the others, so he could wake up and see that they were okay. Still, if they'd gotten out, then they were okay, and once this was over, once everyone calmed down, they could come home.

Wherever Bomb's home ended up being, because the soldiers were talking about doing a controlled detonation of the hospital, since it was the only way to be sure they'd gotten everything.

Roll ran up and hugged Rock once he cleared the outer perimeter of the bomb field. She was relieved to see he wasn't upset like he'd been with Ice, that he wasn't badly hurt. That he was _okay._

"These are gone as well?" Dr. Light didn't sound surprised this time. It was almost expected. "It's…possible that the one we saw out here helped their escape, but it doesn't explain the others…" Dr. Light didn't think the children were this advanced, even. It took the nanites some time to fully interface with the brain; they needed time to rebuild what was destroyed by death and restoring the body to a healthy point happened before any real cognition. There was no point trying to support a brain if the body couldn't supply it with blood and oxygen. It was quickest, most efficient, and least painful this way.

Of course, it was possible that they were seeing a child this old because Bomb was their second-to-last stop. His children had longer to grow and develop as compared to the others. There was also the matter of the child's abilities. The demonstration they'd seen implied some sort of enhanced speed, but with such a small, light frame, he wouldn't have been able to carry someone else and move nearly so quickly. If he hadn't carried them, how else would any have gotten out? And how would they have gotten out without them seeing?

Rock shrugged, looking genuinely innocent, but Dr. Light could tell that he was almost happy this had happened, or at least not sad.

He wished he hadn't noticed that.

He didn't want to lie when he was asked about Rock. He had never been very good at lying—it was still obvious when something was bothering him. Even after all these years.

If he had the decency to try to lie about Blues, it probably wouldn't have worked. All it would have done was undermine his credibility as a witness for the defense. The outcome would have been the same.

But at least he would have tried. At least Albert would return his calls.

There was going to be another inquiry after this, and he didn't know what he was going to do.

If Rock really had started to become inured to violence... At least it meant this would stop being so hard on him. That the memories wouldn't make him suffer in the coming weeks. The ones that might be his last.

* * *

><p>The line with Bomb was dead. Fire bowed his head. He knew Bomb wasn't dead; the humans needed to examine him, examine all six of them. No, they'd be kept alive long enough to discern what happened, what caused the nanites to mutate. Long enough to see how, and determine a new way to stifle it. Silence a new generation. A feeling that crossed between nausea and anger bubbled up inside of him. It was comforting before, when his brothers were still alive. There was more hope then, hope that humanity would turn and <em>see <em>the bioroids for what they were. They weren't being seen at all. They weren't being heard at all. Instead, they were being hunted and put down like rabid animals.

"They're coming here now, aren't they?"

Fire closed his eyes and didn't answer Oil's question.

"Time was trying to help, but now he's gone from the line too, isn't he?" Oil paused and continued when he saw that Fire was going to remain silent. "They'll claim that these cousins weren't there, too, won't they? What are we supposed to do? We need to leave this place. We can't stay here. The humans aren't going to stop. We need to leave, and you need to come with us!"

This wasn't the first time Fire heard this request. Every time Oil brought it up, it became more desperate. More pleading. His children were begging him, '_please live_.' This time would not provide a different answer. Slowly, almost like a teacher speaking to a stubborn student, he told Oil, "The second I disappear from this place, they will panic on a scale far more widespread than anything yet. They will post pictures of my face, and pictures of all those who were in the morgue." Post-autopsy photos. "Even if we remove our armor, the _entire planet_ will be hunting us down. They already view me as a threat. You, however, they do not know. They do not know what you can do, what you know. They do not have your blood samples or your nanite readings. You have a much better chance of surviving if I stay behind." For all the good it would do them, the babes in the woods.

Oil hadn't been alive long. He had no memory of the person whose body he now inhabited. He was young and innocent. He was a child, despite all appearances. He was a child that had never known the switch. A child whose entire world consisted of his siblings and his parent. He knew nothing else. He didn't understand how it could be any other way, and even with Fire's patient explanation, it was plain to see that he just didn't get it. To him, it was as simple as Fire getting up and walking out with them. So what if people would be looking for them? They were so much faster and stronger than humans! Why couldn't they just avoid the humans? Why couldn't they go somewhere and be happy there?

Instead, Oil turned petulantly and sprayed the fire along the walls, causing it to claw upward and roar. He didn't care that he was splashing the ground, that the fire was creeping along the floor now. It'd devour all of the fuel. His entire pose was rigid as the flames licked perilously near his padded boots. He didn't care if this whole room was ruined when the humans took it back. Even better if it were. They should burn the whole place down. If they can't stay here safely, why should the humans even be allowed to take it back in one piece?

They wouldn't be able to take Bomb's hospital back, the building where he had suffered. Guts' was overgrown. Ice's would have to be gutted in order to get rid of the water in the walls before mold grew and sickened patients. Cut's and Elec's were the only ones that were mostly intact.

Hospitals were expensive. Research was expensive. All of this was going to cost humans billions of dollars in facilities, materials, time, records. And if they kept the infected in lockdown or killed them? They were among the world's top medical minds. Once a hospital got a bioroid, the research that could be done there had made humans _fight _to join the staff.

The bioroid experts were the most dangerous, and the humans would know it. They might figure out powers of their own, and even if they were willing to stay imprisoned, that wouldn't last long as days passed in captivity. Unable to do what they'd dedicated their lives to. Locked away from the sun and what they had known.

It had been such an elegant idea when they'd thought it up. If the humans did the right thing, then everything would be well. If not, the ones who had hurt them would suffer most. Or be forced to rebel and help them.

Unless they were all just killed.

If only Rock actually had convinced Dr. Light to come visit them. The human wouldn't have let Rock go alone, unobserved.

If they'd infected _him_, this would almost be worth it. Even though he didn't want to think that. Not when he was talking about deaths.

* * *

><p>The feeling of expectation when they arrived outside the hospital in South Africa was decidedly different from the tension prevalent at the other facilities. The sun-weathered soldiers stationed here debriefed them quickly. Not that any words were needed. Looking at that hospital, it was like they were in the seventh circle of hell.<p>

Fire, everywhere. The ground was blackened and dry and flames were licking at gnarled, withered trees. There were what appeared to be giant balls of flame floating lazily about. That…that in itself was _impossible. _How did they sustain? There wasn't a visible fuel source and a ball of gas that size would burn out in seconds. They were even patrolling, deliberately turning direction every so often. Their paths covered the entire fire field. Some of the ground was heated to the point that it was glowing like embers and the air all around shimmered with the incredible heat. This was far, far hotter than Guts' rainforest abode. This was far, far drier, too. It was like standing before an open oven, and they were still so far back. It burned Dr. Light's eyes. There were errant embers and ash being carried on the wind and occasionally a nascent flame would flick up from them. According to the soldiers, this was the field's "resting" mode. If anyone tried to gain entry, the heat and flame would intensify several times over and those floating balls would attack. The drone they'd sent in barely lasted five seconds. It'd been melted down to slag.

When the plane landed, Rock was the first to unbuckle his seatbelt. He wasn't eager per se, but it was clear in his body language and unguarded eyes that he wanted to _hurry_. Fire was the last one. The sooner he did this, the sooner the fighting was over.

Dr. Light wished he could share the optimism.

Once the fighting was over, the dying could begin. Decisions would begin to be made. And Albert wasn't responding to any messages.

Dr. Light couldn't blame him. They'd feuded, battled for _years_, and _now _Thomas wanted to make peace? Wanted Albert's help to find a way for them to be treated like people, not things? He could picture Albert muttering that he must be smoking something, then turning away from his messages, if he'd even listened to them.

Roll got Rock to eat on the long ride south. He was fully replenished now, though Dr. Light suspected that Roll gave him far more than he probably would need: better to be safe than sorry. The two of them were reassuring each other, had been the whole flight. They'd had each other the entire time. It really would have been safer to let the bioroids be housed in pairs, even if the apparent risks appeared greater. This was never in their calculations.

It made Dr. Light remember an old biology professor he'd had back in college, during a lecture about antibiotics and how bacteria will slowly become resistant to them, to the point of immunity. _"Life will constantly amaze us with its tenacity. If we become complacent, if we do not remain observant, if we are not vigilant, it will creep back up. It will grow around our obstacles and overtake them."_

If he hadn't been so focused on restraining the effects he didn't like…if he'd encouraged the nanites' growth instead of trying to block them at every turn, would they have been any better off?

Or would they have ended up with six more just like Blues?

So _powerful_. Sequencing the human genome was a few years off, and Blues had done it before he'd spoken his first words. Viruses worked by overriding, replacing or even altering the genes of other organisms: some of Blues' nanites had been far smaller than viruses. Molecular machines, on the cellular level and even smaller, able to go into what had been Peter's cells and rewrite the DNA. Several of the people he'd cured had been there with genetic conditions.

But destruction was always easier than creation.

If he could alter such a complex organism as a human being, change all their cells while they continued functioning, then it would be child's play by comparison to alter a single bacterium.

Into something lethal.

No one was really discussing that aspect of this.

The fact that if the rogue bioroids were given enough time to develop their capabilities, and they knew what was possible from the records of Blues' life, then if they grew angry enough, if they thought their children were being butchered, they could create a plague.

It wasn't just Bomb's. All the hospitals would probably be burned to the ground.

Just to be on the safe side.

Rock was getting antsy. He was beginning to fidget and his anxious gaze never strayed far from the fire field. They had to stay far back, much further back than you'd expect, so the humans didn't suffer from the intense heat. It would adversely affect Rock and Roll, too, of course, but it'd take a lot longer. Especially Rock, with his armor to protect him. It was so dry that already, Dr. Light's lips felt paper-thin. Dehydration was a serious concern, as were burns.

Roll was fussing over Dr. Light now, if only to have a distraction from her own anxiety. Water, she was saying. He needed to be drinking it. He needed to get into the shade, please, and sit down. This kind of heat wasn't good for him. Wasn't there somewhere cool they could go? The girl was nervous. Nervous for Rock, nervous about what was about to happen. What was going to happen. What could happen.

As much as he disliked using that word, some of Blues' capabilities had been, well, like _magic_.

The stress of all of this had turned his hair white, and Albert didn't have a single grey hair. Not even after more than a decade. Blues had made him young again: he looked the way he had when they had first met in medical school. More than ten years since then, since Blues had died, and Albert still didn't look a day older. Roll didn't even know where to _start _reproducing what Blues had done to protect his DNA from the accumulated damage that caused so-called 'natural aging,' and honestly, unless a way was found to make creating a bioroid on Blues' level, with that 'instinctive' grasp of the micro level, even _with _an example, reproducing it would probably be impossible for the next few centuries. Even Albert hadn't been willing to try, and the reason he'd stopped making appearances was probably so that people didn't think about it too hard and perhaps force him into a lab that wasn't his own.

What his bioroids were doing was on the macro level. The level of things that humans could see. Even Roll, who was predominantly used for scanning, thought in those terms.

Blues might have become sentient using a human brain, but it was one he'd had to rebuild from the ground up. From that molecular level, the level his nanites operated on.

Rock and Roll had become sentient, learned to talk long before they did anything especially complex, anything they weren't programmed with. He needed to explain how it worked to them. They actually read medical books instead of peering at them with his head tilted the way Blues had, mystified by how much was wrong from his perspective and how _different _the human conceptual image of their bodies was.

Albert's tendency towards lateral thinking was a quarter of his genius: the rest had been his tenacity. The man had never given up on anything. Not, at least, until he'd faced a battle that was legal and ideological, not medical, where fear and illogic reigned.

No: at least the bioroids he'd created were fundamentally different from his accidental creation. Rock and Roll were more human, and he'd intended the other six to be closer to animals. Blues had been something more akin to a sentient virus: he had been symbiotic with what had once been Peter's body, but his mind had been so far from human. So very alien.

Or was that an excuse? A justification?

Rock and Roll weren't as dangerous as Blues, even now that Rock had begun to lose his reluctance to fight. At least he could say that, and he wouldn't be lying. Bioroid super soldiers were very possible. A terrifying possibility.

But even the nanite package they'd developed for the humans, to change them, showed a design philosophy similar to his own. Those nanites were there to support the human mind and body, not simply operate them. Not supplanting them, not altering them without good reason even when that would have made the design more efficient.

Their nanites killed cancer cells. Blues had turned them into normal, healthy cells and upgraded the patient's immune system to make it more effective against cancer. He'd seen no difference between DNA and a computer program, saw no difference between upgrading nanites and upgrading bodies.

The captured bioroids had altered their nanites in order to produce armor. They hadn't altered even their own genetic code. Frankly, he wasn't sure any of them had developed the capability. Yet.

But now they could think. Could learn. And they would know it was _possible_, because Blues had done it.

If the second generation was already sentient, already able to function and create upgrades for themselves, they were running out of time, even as Roll told Rock not to run ahead of them and he waited for them sheepishly.

There were no games to be played here. It was obvious that this bioroid, this one of Rock's brothers, was not treating this like a game, not like a test. This wasn't a way to get close to Rock to see if he was "one of them". This wasn't purely defensive like Ice's had been, not passive like Bomb's. This was aggressive. This was angry. This was the last stand. Fire's stand. Infrared was useless to determine heat sources; the entire place was lit up. The ambient temperature was very near Death Valley in the midday heat. And this was its _inactive_ mode.

There was also no flicker in the edge of Rock's vision, nothing here to run around and replace. Nothing that needed an active hand. After what happened with Bomb, now that Bomb's children were missing, too, Fire would not let one of his children out. There was no way.

Roll glanced at Rock, worried. Would his armor hold up in there? Fire wasn't holding any pretenses here. Her sensors weren't picking up anything inside the castle, the ambient heat and energy were like a thick fog. She couldn't even begin to guess where Fire might be, where his children might be. Whether or not the children were even in there.

They had to be okay in this kind of environment, though, for Fire to have it cranked this high as the 'default' setting. Could that be a clue about their abilities? Then again, Ice's hadn't liked the cold. They'd been snoozing in a warm room, Rock told them. They were safe in there. And here? This hospital may prove the safest yet.

Rock and Roll were children. Dangerous children, children with capabilities humans didn't have, yes, but they were human enough that blurring the line by creating 'bioroids' that might have nanites but were still the same, human people might have blurred the line enough to show that they and their brothers really weren't all that different.

Perhaps it was because he'd been comparing him to Peter that Blues had seemed so different, so _wrong_, so inhuman. Perhaps it was just the fresh perspective. Perhaps it was just that the pain of losing his family had faded with time. Perhaps he'd overreacted, back then.

Now this had happened, and now he was terrified all over again. It wasn't just that the rogue bioroids might destroy humanity on purpose. No: they might unleash something that would irreparably damage an already fragile environment, an invasive species that would topple everything, by _accident_.

If Blues hadn't known exactly what he was doing, he wouldn't have become able to think things up in the first place. They had the ability to come up with things like turning lab mice into things like Guts' pets, but not the knowledge of genes and what could go wrong (one mutation in the wrong place meant cancer meant Blues had _failed_) to be adequately paranoid about their experimentation.

This... this had become just like Blues, hadn't it?

He had to acknowledge that.

They had to be stopped. Gotten back under control. Killed, if it came to that, if they wouldn't listen to warnings, before others died.

Perhaps he hadn't changed at all.

Rock changed. The boy that once clung to him was now smiling at Roll to reassure her.


	13. Impasse

_I apologize for the delay in updating this. I will resume normal Friday updates beginning this Friday. And this site keeps smooshing italicized words together, augh. I think I caught them all._

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><p>The activity on the field shifted as Rock approached. It wasn't subtle and it wasn't even confined to the area closest to the interlopers. The entire field came alive. There was a cracking sound as a branch gave way from a burning tree and its flaming limb split into burning embers when it hit the ground. The fireballs shifted their patrols and intensified, burning hotter and larger than before. Some new ones materialized from the flames licking up from the ground. They fell in pace with the others and soon, the field was populated with dozens more of the sentinels.<p>

Dr. Light and the other humans slowed and hesitated as the heat wave intensified. It'd been disturbingly hot before, but now it felt almost blistering. Dr. Light covered his mouth with a handkerchief and many of the soldiers were doing the same with sleeves or handkerchiefs of their own. The heat didn't stop, and they were forced to back up.

Roll stayed by Dr. Light's side, urging him to back up at a quicker pace; even if she could withstand more heat than he could, it still wasn't good for either of them. And at his age, damage to his larynx or esophagus could be devastating.

She looked back to Rock, and the field beyond him. All of them wanted this over as soon as possible, but if this was any indication of Fire's mood…

She prayed Rock would stay safe.

Rock looked around for someone who looked like they might be in charge. With all the fire, the air was dry, and becoming dryer. He might need to see if they had fire hoses or something to provide the water for him to use Ice's ability to get in.

After a few moments, one of the soldiers braved the heat to approach Rock. The fireballs were noisy. He had to bend down near Rock to even hear him clearly. The soldier nodded, then gave an order into his radio.

Several minutes later, a siren's wailing could be heard and fire trucks rolled up. There were hydrants nearby, though it'd be best to use ones further off; the water in the one nearest the hospital might already be scalding.

Rock had to wonder where he was getting the energy to make all this heat. Elec had mostly been setting off what was already there, but were there oil or natural gas deposits under the ground?

His brothers must be really smart because some of them were really complex. Ice's absorbed heat in order to power itself and used polarity to move the water while it was cooling, for example.

It would be best to soak Rock through, to slow any burns, but they needed to see if they could cool the fire field off enough for the boy to safely cross. The water wasn't hot, thankfully, though its temperature was elevated beyond what was normal. They let the hydrant leak first, only loosening it a bit to test the water. One of the soldiers motioned Rock over.

He held his hands to the water and focused. Their eyes widened when the water actually _froze_.

"That's Ice's, isn't it?" Roll asked, quietly. It was a good idea: rapidly cooling the field could work, if Rock had the resources to power it. Even she was impressed with how quickly and solidly the water froze. However Ice worked out the calculations, it was immediate and _efficient._ She wondered: had her brothers chosen to align themselves with these elements or was it something that they'd had an affinity toward? Were they collaborating to work these abilities out? It seemed like after gaining sentience, they'd have had precious little time to work this much out, especially considering that they'd had to learn about the world in just a few months' time. She wondered if they'd ever truly _slept_ when in containment for the night, or had they stayed up and reached out to one another, night after night, to work this out? It'd been so maddening to Ice that he'd split himself in two; was their tenuous connection the only real anchor to sanity they'd had left?

Rock nodded, but most of his focus was on the ice, slowing the freezing enough the water could run forward over the ground before freezing. "It's really clever, isn't it? They're absorbing the energy in the water. It's actually a lot easier to actually control the ice here than there," even though Canada in the winter was more hospitable to ice.

The group stepped back and aside as the water flowed down and froze. One of the firemen increased the flow for Rock, so he could work more quickly.

"Will you be able to keep it frozen for long in the heat?" Asked one of the soldiers. How long would they have before everything evaporated away?

"It's the heat that powers keeping it frozen," Rock explained again. "Of course, if some of it got blasted with too much heat at once, it would melt the nanites, and then they wouldn't work anymore."

So, indefinitely. "We should get some of this onto the field, see how he reacts." Fire would try to counter the ice. With this sort of display, it was obvious that he knew he was cornered. The fireballs were still floating lazily about, despite their increased numbers. The field calmed down slightly since Rock backed away, but none of the patrols had gone away. They were still on alert.

Rock looked at them, worried. He hoped the fireballs wouldn't go after them, but Fire wouldn't right? Not if they didn't try to get close, the way the soldiers who attacked Elec had?

Roll already began ushering Dr. Light further back and was urging the other humans to follow suit. Rock still had to walk a bit to get close to the field, but him trying to gain entry almost certainly meant the temperature would shoot up. The humans couldn't afford to be standing close. If they backed off, Fire might understand that only Rock was going to try to get in. He may process Rock as the only threat and leave the others alone.

It meant that he would focus on Rock, and she didn't want him to get hurt, but at least he could heal himself. At least her brothers could be fixed easier than humans, since Ice's nanites had told her exactly what was wrong with him and what she had to undo to fix him.

The activity on the field shifted as Rock approached. They'd loosened the hydrant further and now the water was running down the ice and down and around Rock's feet as he moved. The fireballs didn't appear aggressive—yet—but they did begin to alter their patrols. Some of them were clustering around the portion of the field that Rock was headed toward.

He frowned, focusing, trying to form the ice, pile it up into two ridges. Walls, and maybe a tunnel?

The fireballs retaliated immediately. Six of them flared up, their cores burning brightly as they rushed Rock. Several more converged together and melded into a larger fireball. Behind them, new ones formed from the licking flames. The heat in the air intensified all around Rock.

The fireballs weren't solid, there wasn't a single portion of them that was solid matter. They couldn't be swatted away or shot at so easily. Instead, they clung to him, trying to light him aflame, heat the air up, and cancel out his cold.

He'd had the lab safety course, so he stopped, dropped and rolled. The water and ice on the ground helped. It also meant the flames were effective; he'd had to stop concentrating on freezing to react to being set on fire. Surprisingly, new fireballs didn't rain on him in his moment of panic and instead, they hovered, waiting. Except there were even more of them now.

At least they hadn't hurt very much, because of his armor. And they hadn't done much to the tunnel he was trying to build.

How were the fireballs just hovering like that, he wondered. Well, balloons could be made out of lead, so... Well, he guessed Roll would find out when she scanned Fire, if everything went well.

This time, he formed water over himself before working on the walls again.

The fireballs rushed him again. This time, the large one attacked his tunnel while the smaller ones focused on Rock. Without any real mass, they couldn't crush the ice, couldn't break it into smaller, more vulnerable shards. The heat around Rock intensified again. It felt like he was _baking_. Fire was trying to evaporate the water off of him, to get rid of as much of it as he could.

It wasn't really about the water, it was about the energy.

He might have trouble once he was close to Fire himself, and his attention wasn't so divided. For now, making more if Ice's nanites inside his body helped. It was a delicate balance, but it wasn't so bad.

Fire's interference was slowing him, but it wasn't stopping him. Rock was still making progress. The tunnel was getting longer. Aside from the constant barrage of fireballs, there wasn't much else Fire seemed to be able to do, short of coming out himself. It was a bit of a relief to see that none of the children appeared, either. An environment like this would be very hard to handle unless that child's abilities were aligned with fire, too.

Or ice. Should he thank Ice when his brother woke up, or would that be in bad taste?

He was nearly to the door. Flames were licking along the outside of his ice tunnel and most of the fireballs were flinging themselves at its walls. The rest were flailing at Rock. Behind him, a wall of flame had risen to keep the others out.

The hospital itself was charred on the outside, but was still structurally sound. Once Rock was close enough to see through the glass doors, it appeared like the inside was mostly intact. The glass was blackened from smoke in areas, so it was hard to see from this distance, but Fire didn't appear to have used his flames to gut the inside of the building.

That was good. They wouldn't have to worry about fighting in a weakened structure.

He wanted to knock when he got to the doors. He wanted to know why Fire wouldn't just turn off the flames, since they weren't working. Why everyone couldn't just calm down and stop fighting, but if he wanted this to stop, he would have to be the one to stop it.

These doors were unlocked, too. The inside of the building was hot, just as hot as outside, but there really wasn't extensive fire damage. Rock couldn't help but close the door behind him. Just like the previous five, he was met with silence. The floor did have some burn marks on it in a strange pattern, like the fire was confined to an amorphous area. It looked like it burned out rather than spreading, though. Rock's scans indicated that it only got hotter deeper in. It was an effective deterrent for humanity, and if not for Ice's power, it'd have been hard for Rock to handle, too. It was already uncomfortable even though he could feel the coolness radiating off the ice tunnel behind him.

He'd always tried to talk before, so, "Hello," he said. Listening to himself, he was a little sad that there really wasn't any hope in it, that they could avoid this. "Um, is there someplace I should go? I don't want to go looking for the coolest place, because the new ones will probably be there. Although I would want to meet them. Ice's were sleeping." Roll would have said it was really cute.

"I hope they're okay... I know you're worried about them too, but really, the soldiers didn't see them at all. They're really worried, and humans can't lie with their hormones, not like that. So... They probably used their abilities to get out, like Bomb's, and Guts got his out, so..." He _really _shouldn't say that he almost hoped Fire had a plan for getting his out so that Fire wouldn't be so afraid. "It really is safer for them if people know where they are and aren't going to try to hurt them. I'm really worried about Guts'." He shouldn't have told Rock that they had gone, Rock thought, and was a little disappointed in himself for that. Of course it was good to be honest.

There was no response at all, not even a crackling over the intercom. There was an area in the hospital that was cooler, but there was also an area, on the other end, that was much, much warmer. Dr. Light had the floor plan of the hospitals uploaded into Rock so he'd have an idea where everything was. The heat was coming from what felt like downstairs. The boiler room. There were furnaces down there.

Rock didn't want to have to go there. It was going to be a big disadvantage, and really hot, but he couldn't go to where it was cool, even though he _did_ want to see them, and that they were alright.

So he sighed and told himself to get it over with. Once this was over, then he could meet them. Once everyone was safe.

The elevator was out of the question in this building, too, so he had to take the stairs. They were metal and a bit creaky and the walls in the stairwell were charred in places, but they didn't seem to be in danger of collapsing. The building's integrity had been a major worry, one of the largest potential dangers to Rock, but it was surprisingly intact. The lights and utilities were out, so it was harder for him to navigate, but his enhanced eyes allowed him to see several times better than a human.

The further down he got, the hotter it became. Step by step, he could sense the temperature rising. It didn't stop rising, not when he got to the bottom of the stairwell, not when he exited into the hallway, not when he passed the maintenance elevator. How could Fire stand this? Maybe this was why none of his children were around: they couldn't deal well, either. Perhaps they hadn't matured as far as Bomb's. Or maybe they were too scared.

Rock began to hear voices once he neared the boiler room. The door was slightly ajar, and a warm red light flickered along the floor, like dancing flames. There were shadows darting over the light, and it was evident that someone was standing between the door and the light source. He crept closer and he could make out words—it was an argument, though neither was actually yelling.

"…with the others."

"No. If I do that, then you'll be…" The voice trailed off, clearly unable to complete that painful thought. "It'll be better this way."

"I already told you, no."

"_I_ already told _you_, yes. He's inside the building, isn't he? That's why you're like this." Why it was so hot. _"__There__'__s__ not__ any__ time __left.__"_

"Um," he said, a little loud so that they could hear him. "I can wait, if it means that things would be easier." It was a good thing, if people were talking instead of fighting.

He could wait a little longer, if this would be over soon. If it meant that all that was left was just trying to win with as few people getting hurt as possible, to make it easier on everyone.

Fire's silence even _felt_ irritated and Rock couldn't even see him yet. There was a sound like armored, padded feet moving and the door swung fully open. It was Fire. He was dressed in what looked like a grey jumpsuit with red armor over it. The armor atop his head resembled a burner, and flames licked up from his head. He looked thoroughly harassed and, had Rock had something to compare it to, Fire's expression may have reminded him of a mother at the mall, a mother whose child wouldn't stop touching everything, wouldn't stop asking for everything. "Just come inside."

"Thank you," Rock said, smiling sympathetically and sheepishly. Fire was reminding him of Roll, actually, when the two of them were frustrating her.

Rock never meant to frustrate her, but Roll understood human etiquette a lot better than he did, so she often had to remind him to do things or tell him not to do things. It didn't help that Dr. Light tended to ignore these unwritten rules if he was engrossed in his work. He tried not to seem too eager to actually meet the child, Fire might think Rock wanted to learn about him to fight him or something like that, when that wasn't it at all.

Fire held the door open for Rock and stepped inside behind him. The boiler room's condition was…a bit alarming. Every surface was charred black and there were flames actively flickering along the walls, though they had no visible source of fuel. The child was standing nearer to the middle of the room—Fire's shadow had been the one blocking the light in the door—and though he didn't look as openly disgusted by Rock as Bomb's, his general expression was still distasteful. He didn't look too happy with Fire, either, for that matter.

Of course, Fire's choice to acknowledge Rock and invite him in effectively cut off any further discussion for them. Rock's offer to wait gave Fire ground to have Oil march straight upstairs. He was already considering a counterpoint to that argument. As idealistic as his parent was, Oil knew that this wasn't the time for that. He needed Fire to be practical, for once.

"Um, hello," Rock said. "I'm, well, I'm sure you know who I am, but I'm also sort of your uncle."

The child blinked at Rock, clearly taken aback by his politeness. His composed expression cracked and he glanced at Fire, unsure. Fire's arms were crossed and he frowned at Oil, as if to say, _'__You__ wanted__ to __stay,__so __here __you __are.__'_

"…Hello." Even though it was true, Rock was family, it still felt so _awkward._"I'm Oil." The child was coated from head to toe in some kind of inky black armor. Some of Fire's face could be seen, but the only thing not coated on Oil was his eyes.

"I'm Rock," he said. "And my sister is Roll. I hope you'll get to meet her soon, but... She's been taking care of your uncles, but she doesn't want anyone to get hurt, either. So, if your maker was asking you not to fight, please don't? No one wants you to get hurt. And I don't want to have to hurt anyone, but... You're new and little and young. The one we saw at Bomb's couldn't heal as well as we can—it made Roll worry that he was sick! So, I might hurt you badly by accident, and then Fire would worry too."

"You're right, I am young," Though to the humans, weren't they all young? A human disregarding what their children say was a common theme in their media. "But I can still stand. You'll hurt dad either way, and I'll worry either way. It's not right, to take them away from us." Oil turned his head toward his father, "It's not right for you to refuse to go with us."

"I already told you; I will not go."

"They're going to kill you!" Oil was getting upset now.

"They won't! Everyone's just scared and worried now, and when you're fighting you're _enemies_ and they just want it to be over too and when enemies are dead it's _definitely _over. You're worried about your dad, and other people are worried about their families too, you know! There's evidence now that it's not just your fault, and the people at the hospital in Canada _lied _to Dr. Light, and..." He shook his head. "I don't want my brothers to die either, and there are bombs, and... Right now, people are scared, like you're scared about what's going to happen to Fire, and when people are scared and trying to protect people, they hurt each other. Everyone's just trying to defend themselves, even the people who lied about Ice didn't want him to be taken away from them and their patients. This is just... No one's trying to hurt anyone here, but people will keep fighting and being hurt as long as people aren't _safe_. So... I know that you want to help, but making the fighting last longer isn't helping. It just means that people will have longer to start going crazy with worry. Like loneliness." Losing the people that kept you from being lonely was scary.

Oil rounded on Rock, "You really think they won't kill him? You really think they'll just let him go? Our oldest uncle _didn__'__t__ do __a __single __thing __to __hurt __anyone_ and look at what happened to him! You're right, when the enemy is dead, the fighting is definitely over, and that's exactly how humans will see this. They won't trust us because _they__ never__ have!__"_ Oil's one fist was clenched and his other arm was still engulfed in the pump. He moved as if to raise his weapon at Rock, but Fire moved between them, blocking Oil's aim. He leaned forward, resting his forehead against Fire as the older bioroid sighed. A tired sigh.

"I didn't think you'd seen _that.__" _There was an apology laced into the regret in his tone. It wasn't something he'd wanted the child to have seen. It had been bad enough to the six to find out what happened to their brother, but the ensuing media circus…anti-bioroid sites even had it up like a snuff film. For activists, it was a platform, evidence of human cruelty. Nowhere had they seen the Eldest actually treated with the respect due the dead.

Oil was distressed, so Rock wanted to comfort him, but he'd made him angry, so all he could think to do was leave them alone for a bit. It was like when Dr. Light comforted him.

"You should have let me attack him," Oil's voice was soft and uneven as he tried to choke down his sobs. "You should have let me surprise him." They'd have won. They'd have won and they could have taken Rock and debugged him and everything would have been _fine._

Fire shook his head. "It's not right. It's not our way." He wouldn't stand for it. It took the child a few minutes to calm down, but he eventually quieted. He leaned against the wall and slid to the floor, staring at the flames sullenly. It was even harder because Rock was so _nice._ He could justify doing anything to win if he was a bad person, but he wasn't. He was such a nice person and he was still fighting against them. Oil didn't understand.

"Go back upstairs. Go with the others." Fire knelt down next to Oil. "They were going to come for us from the moment we struck out. There's nothing you or anyone else could do to stop it. It's not your responsibility to stop this." It wasn't his guilt to shoulder, or his blame.

"If I leave you, he'll take you away."

"If you stay, he'll take us both away."

"If I stay, we'll _win.__"_

"We'll lose, even if we win." Fire stood up and slowly, almost reluctantly, Oil did the same. The only thing Fire could do was try to ensure his children could be safe. To do that, they had to stay together. "Go upstairs, before they tell him not to let you go."

Oil didn't even spare Rock a passing glance as he rushed out of the boiler room.


	14. Thanatopsis

_Okay, this is the second-to-last chapter...for this first story arc. Keep an eye out on either the front page or my profile, because the second arc is going to be posted the week following this one's completion._

_And again: we don't own Rockman, Capcom does. We're making no money off of this.  
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><p>Rock didn't think they would order him to capture Oil. Certainly Dr. Light wouldn't, but if they weren't going to listen when he defended people... Still, he was relieved that Oil wouldn't have to be hurt, and he let that show.<p>

Fire was grateful in return. "Thank you, for giving me time to get him out of here. It's hard for them," he sighed as he dusted off his gloves. "At this point, there's little purpose in debating, isn't there? By now, I think you've heard everything I have to say." From the others, their fallen brothers.

"I think so. Although it was Bomb's child that said something useful. Just saying that people are bad doesn't help anything, I don't think it ever does, but if you were actually... If they ignored that you were hurting? They were supposed to tell us about things like that. Dr. Light would have done something. If there are other things like that... I know you wouldn't have done this without good reasons." And people would listen to that, once everything calmed down and was peaceful again. "Also, they really don't know where anyone went. Really. Except Guts', he said they got out, but they're not lying. No one's killed the little ones. Roll would have noticed. That would be destroying evidence, so Dr. Light and all the analyst people said definitely not to, and he had her check." She'd had to go into Bomb's before they detonated it. "If they have abilities too, they're probably just hiding. So... I hope that makes you feel better."

Fire's mouth was covered by his helmet, but his eyes communicated his smile, even if he seemed a bit sad. Like he was seeing all of this from an angle Rock couldn't. It was true that humans were terrible at lying with their hormones. They could control their voice, put on a brave face, but their bodies didn't lie. Fear still rolled off them. Illness still rolled off them. He'd sensed it all, from the dying in the hospital. The syringes delivered them from that. The syringes did what he hadn't been permitted to.

If his children could get away, if none of the other humans were lying to Dr. Light about the others' babies…then at least, there was hope for the next generation. That was enough for him.

"I am sorry, but I cannot simply walk out of here with you." It'd be like spitting on his brothers, like spitting on the Eldest's grave, to give up like that.

"I know that. I don't agree, but... We're keeping all of you together," Rock promised. "So you won't have to be alone, ever again. Even when you're asleep. So... I know you can't not worry, not when people are in danger, but it'll be okay. Dr. Light... he's always been nice to me and Roll."

Fire nodded once, and raised an arm. The flames intensified and surrounded the room. The door was barricaded, but not to keep Rock in. He didn't want any more of his children coming anywhere near here. He was still skeptical of Dr. Light, but Rock seemed to be telling the truth. If that was the case, if he really was treating Rock and Roll well, then…at least he was capable of it. It still angered him, though, knowing what happened to the Eldest. Where was his kindness then?

He shouldn't pass it off on Rock, or blame him. Instead, Fire clenched his fists and his armor formed over them, fabricating two metallic nozzles. He didn't even wait for Rock to react to his arming himself. He leapt at him.

Rock had stored all the water inside himself that he could but there was only so much. Using Ice's weapon would block the fire, but only for so long.

The temperatures in here would kill a human. If Rock wasn't careful, his skin would be covered in burns just by being in the room. His flamethrowers seemed excessive. His aim was much more calculated than Bomb's had been. He was calmer, less distracted by worry. He was more dangerous this way.

Rock couldn't lose. Not when this was the last one, not when winning meant this would be _over_. It would be over, and his brothers would be alive and together, and they could all be fixed, and everyone would be safe and the children could come and meet them and get check-ups and make sure they weren't sick or something, that there wasn't anything wrong with their nanite interfacing. Roll had been worrying about Bomb's during the whole flight here, he just knew it.

Fire was trying his hardest, too. He didn't have as much combat experience as Rock, but he didn't get worked up the way the others had. He was much calmer, much more collected. He dodged one of Rock's shots and once they were more side-by-side, he blasted him with his flamethrower again.

Rock had adjusted his armor to help with the heat: keeping Ice's nanites under it meant they converted it into energy he could use. That would be a big help using Elec's weapon, but Fire was protected against it, like Bomb.

His boots weren't rubber, though; that would melt. He'd insulated himself another way. It was amazing how he could maintain the heat level in here and outside. It was an active, ongoing effort. For Ice, he'd exerted the energy to freeze it, but the cold weather helped. Elec used the environmental charge. But how was Fire doing this?

If Rock wasn't careful, he'd get a Fire Storm to his face.

Rock ran to the side, trying to get enough breathing room to focus and change weapons. When he turned around, he threw the knives in his hands at Fire's nozzles.

Fire swatted at the blades, deflecting them, and jumped away. There were scratches on the nozzles, but not much else. He wasn't afraid of letting Cut's weapon hit them. He recovered quickly and by the time he landed, a nozzle was pointing at Rock and blasting fire straight at him.

He had to get rid of the nozzles: he couldn't keep this up forever. The area the flames covered was just too large for him to dodge and fire, the way he'd finally managed with Bomb, even though he was getting better at this. Not that getting better at this was something to be happy about. There really was only one way to destroy the nozzles long enough for him to shoot Fire while he fixed them. He didn't like it, though. The memory of using that ability made him shudder.

But he readied the power fist and charged into the flames, reaching for Fire's nozzles and feeling his body's damage as Ice's nanites were overwhelmed, now that he wasn't focusing on them.

Fire actually _cried__ out__ in __pain_ under Rock's crushing grip. The metal snapped and bent on both flamethrowers and his brother actually used his arms to shove Rock back, the first display of actual anger that he'd seen from Fire. Fire skipped back into the flames, hoping to keep Rock off him long enough to repair the damage. It _hurt._

Rock couldn't help hesitating after that. It look him almost half a second to switch to the buster, to start firing again, and he wanted to apologize so, so much.

But that was for later, when this was over and people were safe and he might have earned forgiveness.

Fire was distracted by his crushed hands and didn't quite dodge the shots. He evaded a couple of them, but the rest hit him dead-on. Two on one arm, one to the torso. One to his opposite shoulder. He clenched his teeth under his mouth guard. His body was becoming numb: this was engineered to shut him down. Dr. Light had done this. A wave of panic rose in him as he focused and sent a wall of fire at Rock. It wasn't as strong and focused as his Fire Storm, but maybe, if he could just repair even one arm...he may yet stand a chance.

It wasn't an actual sending, but from trying to get a read on Rock's condition, Fire could feel Rock's pain on his behalf, his desperate apology, even if he couldn't tell anything about how damaged Rock was. He realized that this was for his sake, not Rock's, and it just made him more aware how contrary to their nature it was to _hurt _anyone, especially kin. They had been so lonely for so long, and now a brother was here, and hurting him? It was so hard, now that he had started to think about it. Not watching the others, but actually doing it.

But there wasn't a way out. This, this revolt, this example made of these hospitals, was their only, desperate escape. It was this, or to completely lose themselves to madness. And who knows what would have happened then. Who knows how their nanites would have mutated, how many patients would have suffered for it. They hated pain, they _wanted __to __help_, but to help, they had to be healthy, too. They needed to be looked after, too. His focus was slipping; his mind was beginning to wander. His left arm didn't hurt any more. It wasn't repaired, but it was numbed. He didn't have much time left. He focused his repair efforts into his right nozzle.

Rock saw what he was trying to do, and it was the fact he couldn't stand the idea of having to crush again, to _feel _his brother break in his own hands, _by _his own hands, that made him shoot so fast, so desperately. He'd never fired more than three times in quick succession before, too worried that they all might hit, might do too much damage.

Fire's legs weren't hit, and the numbness hadn't slid that far, so he managed to dodge one of them. The other two hit his torso, near where the first one had. They tore through his protective suit and he dropped to his knees, catching himself on his twisted nozzles. That hurt, too, but one was completely numb, and the pain reminded him that he wasn't dying. He could see blood dripping down, but he knew that his nanites would close that up quickly. It wasn't even that deep, his systems reported. His mind was getting foggy now. It was hard to pin a single thought down and the harder he tried to focus, the more it slipped from him. He finally succumbed as his nanites shut down in rapid succession and he slumped forward. The flames in the room winked out, leaving Rock in darkness.

Rock had promised Roll he wouldn't scan them, but as Fire fell he couldn't help running to catch him, couldn't help querying him, just to make sure that he was okay.

He sat there, clutching his brother, and _shook_.

It was over. It was finally over.

He was crying when they found him.

Fire's children were _gone._Dr. Light rubbed his temples. Rock was curled up, leaning into his side and clutching his lab coat while the soldiers relayed the news to them. There was no one in the hospital. Rock and Fire were the only two they'd found. Rock even said he'd met one of Fire's children. He'd been able to speak with him. He identified himself as "Oil" (if that wasn't a clue to the child's power, Light didn't know what was) and apparently intended to assist Fire. Roll was horrified until Rock reassured her that they didn't actually fight. Fire defused the situation before it turned into something dangerous.

"He thinks we're going to kill Fire," Rock said, quietly. "I think that Bomb's thought the same. The ones in Ice's hospital were anxious when we left. They don't think they'll see their parents again."

"Well, I don't think anyone will be too hasty," Dr. Light tried to reassure them. Not with the children out there. Just by being out there, just by not being found, they were making a threat. Hostages had sometimes been used as a guarantee of peace because they cut both ways, after all. If their parents were killed, the children would never simply come forward and turn themselves in to see them again.

They had a bargaining position. There were things he could say, truthfully, in order to keep all of them alive. Rock was seen as a hero instead of a threat—he and Roll had already stripped the armor off, so he was back to being a small, cute, exhausted little boy. And so very, "Brave. You've been very brave, both of you. I know this was hard on you, but you did very well."

Rock smiled a bit, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. He knew that Dr. Light meant it, and he knew what he did was necessary, but it still felt so _wrong_ to him. Those were his brothers; they shouldn't have been fighting to begin with.

He was worried about the babies, too, but he was…he felt that they were okay. Even though his brothers didn't know where they'd gone. But hadn't Oil mentioned that they were trying to get Fire to go with them? Fire may know where his babies went, after all. That was both a relief and…worrisome. "Are we going to go back to Japan now, Dr. Light?" Once they could get Fire online, they could ask.

"The lab is there." The only intact bioroid support lab left. "Hopefully it won't take much longer for them to clear the facility," and clear them to go. They might need Roll to analyze anything they found.

Rock wanted to go home. He wanted to go home and crawl into bed and just _sleep._ When he'd come out with the soldiers and Fire, Roll fussed over both their conditions—they were dirty and sooty and Rock looked like he'd run six marathons straight. It felt good to get the armor off. He didn't ever want to wear it again.

Roll had wrapped Rock up in a blanket and threatened to shove the contents of several thermoses down his throat if he didn't open his mouth and stop clinging to Dr. Light long enough to drink them. Dr. Light had put his hand on the boy's shoulder to make that easier for him.

He thanked Roll for the thermos, he really was grateful, even if he was reluctant to let go of Dr. Light. He needed the hydration. He snuggled into the crook of the doctor's arm instead and began to drink the thermos while Roll could see. He knew she'd be refilling it several times. His systems indicated he was severely dehydrated. It was compounding his exhaustion. He had no idea how Fire managed. How that baby managed.

His body said to sleep, so since no one was asking him any more questions, and once Roll was satisfied, he slept. And healed.

At least things were that much back to normal already.

The drive back to the lab was surprisingly quick since local police cleared all the roads from the airport to the main Light Medical facility. The media couldn't even get close and the truck carrying Dr. Light and the bioroids arrived at the lab unmolested. Putting Rock to bed was Light's first priority. One of the soldiers carried the boy in while the others unloaded the six incapacitated bioroids under Roll's direction. Dr. Light took his time to tuck Rock in. He hoped the normalcy of waking up in his own bed would help; he wasn't sure the entire ordeal really sank in yet. He straightened and winced at a crick in his back.

He headed down into the lab next. He needed to get them settled in and then the in-depth diagnostics needed to begin. He needed to know what happened. He needed to call his lawyer about the hospital in Canada, at least. Maybe all six of them.

It would be part of the investigation, after all. What went wrong to cause this.

He wondered if any of them had gotten a photo of Rock looking like this. Or when he'd been carried in, looking so small and trusting even in a stranger's arms.

The reporters would be calling soon. They could wait.

The six of them were laying down on lab tables, but still near one another. They would not be held in separate rooms, not any more. He watched Roll direct the soldiers and couldn't help a smile. She was agitated, worried about Rock, about her brothers, about her brothers' children. But direct the soldiers, gather data, get the lab ready, these were all things she could do. He left her to do it and instead uploaded the data Rock gathered from Fire onto one of the terminals. They'd need to watch the feed and he'd need Roll to scan Fire thoroughly, to see if anything was different. To see what was the same.

They all ended up watching when the conversation began, even if out of the corners of their eyes.

Paternal instinct. So very human.

Surely, surely... He wanted to believe that Rock was right. He wanted to.

Even when he saw his face, reflected from a computer screen Roll hadn't turned on yet.

They'd all changed. Hadn't they?

The main computer screen flickered to life alongside its peripheral displays. Light glanced back to Roll. "How are they holding up?"

"They're settled in now. Once they all felt each other here, they sort of relaxed." It made scanning them simpler, quicker.

Where to even begin? Light was silent for a few moments before finally asking, "Roll, will you bring up their status logs starting six months ago?" Starting well before they'd have undone the locks. What started this, at what point did this begin to be torture? That was what it was, there was no question about that. Inhumane didn't even begin to cover the depth of cruelty shown to these bioroids.

The screen flickered and Light's heart sank. Some of them began earlier than others, but..."All six of them…this is only three weeks in." Guts' and Ice's were particularly spotty. Their overall wellness plummeted first, Ice much more dramatically than the others. Following the timeline was like watching a sick story. Ice's stress levels improved by a 50% margin about five weeks in. That was when he'd split. Despite that improvement, his nanites were reporting severe debilitation in mental wellness and ability to perform. There was no way the doctors didn't see that, it would have shown up on the reports in a hot second. For several weeks after that, they appeared to be struggling. Then, three months ago, they all stabilized. That was when they'd found each other and undone the locks. It was hard to tell how long it took just by these readings, but they appeared to be sharing the workload, as he suspected.

"At least one of them should have..." Six hospitals, and _none _of them had submitted an honest report? It almost boggled the mind. Unless they hadn't known what they were looking at, or hadn't known to scan for mental state. There wasn't supposed to truly _be _mental state there.

Light's hands were shaking slightly. "Once they were able to speak to each other…like a voice in the night." They'd stabilized, but they were still well under what could be considered "happy and healthy." Their existences had become bearable, but just that. If the doctors hadn't known to scan for mental state, didn't the responsibility fall to him for not instructing them clearly enough? For not educating them enough on the matter? If he'd let just let Rock visit, they'd have known immediately….

It hadn't even been six months since he'd sent them out and woken up the twins! They shouldn't have been able to develop minds, and this _fast_? This rapid a process of evolution, even discounting what had happened once they contacted each other?

Still.

That excused none of it. The first had been an accident. This time, he'd chosen to create bioroids, and he would take responsibility for that choice.

They called him a monster already: no one would believe that he hadn't had anything to do with this. There must have been some conspiracy, someone would say, and wasn't he the logical suspect? To make sure that bioroids remained viable, that the human lives could be saved?

Bioroids were front and center now, for better or worse. Their blood was on his hands, had been from the beginning. "Roll, is there any indication about when they began developing their abilities?" That was another thing: nothing in their programming warranted the development of abilities to control the environment. People were accusing him of trying to breed some kind of a race of super-soldiers. People were calling it black magic. Necromancy, creating minions from corpses. Just for a start.

Roll became very still as she began querying the data she'd collected. It took almost five seconds for her to compile it all—a small eternity for a bioroid—and then she frowned. The display on the screen changed to feature the abilities. "It…they were talking with each other for a while before their nanites began mutating into the ones that can activate their abilities. But…" They'd done a very specialized nanite set for each of them, _in__ only __a __few__ weeks__' __time._ They'd been thinking for only a week or two by then, and they could do this much?

Dr. Light just nodded, but he remembered Blues. By comparison, this wasn't odd at all. "They probably developed them for this revolt, then." He sighed. They'd had to have gone over their options extensively, yet this was still voted the best one? He looked back to them. They looked almost like dolls, they were so still. What had he done?

What was he going to do?

If they would even leave the decision up to him.


	15. Afterword

_ Alright, here's the last chapter of the first installment of Recovery! Although, really, this is more of an afterward for our "prequel" story. I'll try to update regularly, but real life does call, as I'm sure you all know. Next up is a new fic, the second installment, so do keep an eye out._

_ Rockman and all associated characters/property belong to Capcom. We're not making any money off this, unfortunately._

* * *

><p>Warm. There was light on his skin, even ultra-violet light, which he felt rarely. Even when he broke free, they'd still needed to hide away indoors, away from the sun and natural light.<p>

The vitamin D his skin cells produced added to the feeling of animal contentment, the knowledge that all was well.

Soft breathing all around, as though all he would have to do to feel another was reach out. Or roll to the side, so he did that, and rested his head on what might be someone's shoulder when he was greeted with a small, "Mmp," and the contact was permitted, even curled into.

Safe, warm, full, unhurt... It was like a dream.

Mind still dim, he reached out for Quick, because only he would have cut a skylight into the younglings' room, of all things... Yes, he understood wanting natural light, but... Automatically, as his mind and nanite functions booted up, he reached out for the other five as well.

A leg kicked the blanket off his body, so he could enjoy more of that light. It was a rare delicacy in his experience: he pitied the humans who had to hide away from it. Without nanites, the light they needed to create a chemical they needed to be happy and healthy would attack their DNA, slowly damaging their skin and perhaps even killing them.

Such weak things... they died so easily, even when Elec's attack had only been meant to scare them off. He'd looked up the proper voltage for electric fences after that... Was he still so upset about it?

The comfy person beside him shifted beneath his own blanket, curled to his side. He hadn't detected the sunlight yet; his body was covered by the blanket, his head almost completely obscured from sight. He scooted closer and reached out as well, looking for the others. It was warm here, very warm. Had they turned the heat lamps up again? He should check the door, the hall was always such a mess if he didn't watch it. But it was comfy here, and they were all sleeping, so comfy…

Wait.

_Wait._

Ice's eyes snapped open, wide and surprised. Realizing that he was back in Light Laboratories wasn't what alarmed him (though that merited its own concern, which he would address momentarily), but _what __was __this __in __his __logs? _He sat up, abruptly, holding a hand to his head, eyes unfocused as his mind's eye was fully engaged. A _deviated __personality?_ It was true: about half of his memories were missing…oh, no, they were in a separate folder. What was this? He…what had he done to himself? Someone had put him back together, with great care, and he was grateful that whoever it was hadn't outright deleted the second personality. That wasn't an imaginary friend; that was _half__ of__ his __mind._

His systems registered the sunlight and he jerked from his daze, blinking, and looked around. As shaky as his new findings were, it was more imperative to assess his physical situation. He looked down and around…they were all laid out, beside one another. There was a skylight above them; the source of the sunlight. He blinked up at it, then around and back down. Cut's movements were what drove him from his status, was he awake too? He placed a hand on his brother's shoulder.

"Mmph, Quick, put the roof back..." Cut said, and rolled over.

Ice blinked and shifted, almost having to get to his knees to reach back to Cut. He was very small compared to the others. "Cut!" He shook Cut's shoulder slightly.

"Yes, I know the light is nice, but..." When that trailed off in mumbling, Ice felt Cut try to reach out to someone. One of his children?

He felt his brother's shock and worry as Cut authorized the adrenaline production to wake him up fast. Where was his child?

...Where was _he_?

Ice bit back the instinct to quell Cut's anxiety with his own nanites and instead let Cut wake up naturally, much like he had. Ice glanced back and around at the others. They were all still, all asleep. A quick probe of the room indicated that for the moment, they were unattended.

Unattended, in a room with a large skylight. They could break out through it, the question was how far they would get.

The other four were here, but neither of the two second-eldest... Roll, that was who had fixed his mind.

None of the children were here.

He couldn't feel the children.

Panic blossomed inside of him as he scooted to his other side, to the brother on that side: Elec. He could see Bomb on the other side of him. He gripped Elec's shoulder and shook him a bit harder than he meant to. It was hard for him to focus, he was still trying to go through his own logs, figure out what he'd done to himself. Had he hurt his children? Where were they? Even if they weren't beside them, he should still be able to hear them, feel them.

Elec's noise was more one of annoyed confusion. None of his children had gotten as far as words, although they had gotten to the point of randomly tackling him and trying to get daddy to pay attention to them when he was trying to work on keeping them all safe. It wasn't a focused message, but his broadcast state, or aura, was along the lines of, 'Knock it off!'

Ice responded immediately with an aura of his own, since physical contact wasn't working. He pressed panic into it, laced it with his own identity (and hoped they'd recognize him now that he was whole) and pressed to Elec to, 'Get up!'

"What... Ice?" Elec stared up at him, once his eyes opened.

Ice tried to ignore the fact that this was probably the first time any of them had spoken to him while he was lucid (Why was that thought alone making him sick?). "Elec, I can't find any of the children." Oh, and they were in Light's labs again. But that was more like an afterthought. They needed everyone to get up. _They __needed__ to__ find__ the __children._

Elec look at him, and Cut, then at Guts, who still slept. "It might just be that there's interference." He was the one who had set up how they'd stay in touch with each other over such distances. "Guts got his children out even before Dr. Light sent the second eldest..." He nudged him with his foot, hitting Bomb and Fire as well with, "_Wake__ up,__ it's_ important_." _He asked Ice and Cut, "What did I miss?" He was the first to fall: if all the others were here, that answered that question, but they all knew more about the situation than he did, since they'd lasted longer.

Ice hesitated and glanced back at Cut, even as Fire stirred and Bomb groaned. "I just woke up, too," Interference…he could cope with that. So long as they were okay. His own memories were so choppy, and he couldn't trust them, not until he finished going over what changes were made to him.

"Same here," Cut agreed. "And he came for me second, Elec." So he didn't know much more than Elec did. "The news claimed that when they opened up the morgue, your children were gone."

"That was the story for each of us, and for my children as well, I imagine." Fire's voice cut in. He'd woken up readily, though Bomb still languished under his blanket. "The hospitals didn't report us properly to Dr. Light. Now they will begin slinging blame and pointing fingers." He didn't feel bad for what they'd done. He flexed his wrist, inspecting that it healed fully. "I was the last."

"The second eldest?" Ice wondered. "Roll worked on my mind," so he knew she'd survived. "He captured all of us?" Intact? Or at least fixable?

"He did." Fire stretched his legs experimentally. On the other side of him, Bomb sat up, dazed. They'd all needed a lot of work done to bring them up to a healthy state. There'd been six of them, yet they'd all fallen. Why had Dr. Light even allowed them to reawaken? Fire looked up, toward the skylight, reaching out to scan the room and their surroundings. Figure out the building's weak points in case they did try to make a break for it.

The room was white, bright and clean. The six of them were resting on a couple large futons pushed together, piled with more of the necessary amount of pillows and blankets in cheerful colors with much more personality than anything that belonged in a hospital, at least in their experiences. Children's wards were different: they'd all borrowed things from them for their children. There were also pitchers and stacks of paper cups on the top of a low cupboard near the door.

Ice eased up on trying to reach his children, though he still did try periodically. He hoped that they were safe and warm, wherever they were. All of them were looking around owlishly, still sleep-hazed and not quite believing that they were actually together, _awake_. Bomb flopped back down onto his back, seeming almost petulant, but they could feel that he was scanning the area as actively as the rest of them. He saw no reason not to enjoy the sunlight while doing so.

It _was_nice... Someone else could see if the door was locked. At least they didn't have to worry about being drugged, not anymore. Even if they just sat back and waited, someone would be along to check on them.

It was Fire that finally got up. Now that none of them were wearing armor, they looked no different from any of the humans. He tested his limbs, stretching experimentally before heading over to the door. He paused by the pitchers, sending nanites to examine their contents. Ice water, as expected, but there was orange juice and lemonade here, too. It was freshly made. The ice was still floating in the pitcher, too; these hadn't been put out very long ago. They were expecting them to awaken, so that might make this easier. He broadcast the pitchers' contents back to the others before turning and trying the door.

"Roll?" Ice wondered. She was Dr. Light's servant, and would a human have taken care like that? Fresh-squeezed, not the fake or from concentrate stuff.

Like the blankets. Nice things, not just the minimum. Putting them together like this.

The doorknob gave way to Fire easily and he gently opened the door. Judging from what they'd heard about the dynamic of the Light household, it wasn't unlikely that Roll was the one tasked to setting all of this up for them. It also explained the care taken, the consideration.

She was one of them, after all.

Roll sat primly in a chair with her eyes closed: she had gone back to work analyzing while waiting for them to wake up. They hadn't known how long it would take the others to wake up naturally, especially when they would probably go into REM state if they weren't forced awake, since after what happened they'd have a lot to deal with in their minds, too.

When the vigil started, Rock had sat there nervously, but when it was clear their brothers weren't going to wake up immediately he'd decided they had the right idea and curled up on the couch across from Roll: there was a coffee table between them, and a loveseat and more chairs around it. Both of them were alerted when their brother entered the room, but they didn't react immediately, in order to give him the choice of going back in the room without talking to them, if he wasn't ready yet, without being rude.

Them not responding right away actually alarmed Fire slightly and he probed them gently to see if they were okay. Rock spoke as though Light treated them like family, but if they weren't okay…his systems returned that without contact, he couldn't be sure, but they seemed fine.

It gave him déjà vu, to be the one standing here, the one in the position to invite them in. Just like he had to Rock when Oil was being insistent. Except this time, his child wasn't here. He wasn't sure how he felt about that.

When he did that instead of retreating, they opened their eyes, and he felt that they were the ones worried if he was okay: they hadn't wanted to scare him. Rock especially.

Fire lingered in the doorway for a moment longer before stepping fully into the room. He could feel worry from both sides; the brothers back in the room impacted him more acutely. Their link was more direct, more intimate. The twins…he did not know so well. Yet. He could feel their worry nonetheless and he automatically tried to quell it. He wasn't angry or even upset. They weren't to blame.

"Welcome," to my house, Roll said politely.

"I didn't fight Oil," Rock told him, knowing that was Fire would be most worried about. "Or Time." And he knew they'd have to call him if they found any of them, now that they were awake and could figure out to defend where they settled the way their fathers had. "No one's seen any of anyone's children."

Roll nodded. "I was given permission to monitor signals looking for them." She would have picked up the alarm and radio chatter of the kind of operation it would take, for the humans to think they had a chance at assaulting another hospital, or who knew what, turned fortress.

"With any luck, they won't be fool enough to draw attention to themselves." He wasn't going to help them look. As far as he was concerned, it was a good thing that the children weren't in contact. It was far too dangerous right now. He turned to Roll then, not forgetting his manners. "Thank you for keeping an eye out on it." If they were stupid enough to try anything, this way, perhaps it could be caught before it got out of hand. Before people were hurt, or worse.

Roll nodded, then frowned a little. "You didn't change the survival imperative, did you?" She'd figured out why Dr. Light was worried last night, and since then _she'd_been worried.

"Huh?" Rock looked at her, but she kept looking at Fire instead of turning to explain it to him. She didn't want him to have to worry, even for a second, if he didn't have to.

He actually bristled at that, clenching his fists as his entire posture became more rigid. He frowned at Roll. He could have gone into a rant, a lecture even, of how _human_ a suspicion that was, but they could probably read it just fine with their nanites. "No." _Of__course__not._

She held up her hands, telling him to calm down, she wasn't trying to insult him or anything. "I just wanted to make sure. This is Japan," where troops had killed themselves rather than surrender, "And they knew what happened to you. Dr. Light's been worried." That they'd killed themselves rather than fall into _his_hands.

"Roll?" Rock asked again.

"Never mind, Rock," she said, with an air of finality.

Dr. Light was worried? About all of them? That was a bit of a strange notion, but…"It's not something we need to be worried about. It's not even on the table." They wouldn't have brought new life into the world and set them up to self-destruct. The entire concept was just so…perverse.

"That is a relief, because even though you wouldn't have done it deliberately, it might have just happened in the process of adjusting something. I know you didn't make them the same way you yourselves were made." They wouldn't have given them any imperatives or limits meant to make them docile, for example.

Fire had scanned his children many times, to comfort them or to check their well-being. Their programming and imperatives were part of those scans; nothing like what Roll was suggesting was ever present. As stressed as he was to be separated from them, as terrible as not knowing how they were doing, whether they were well was, it was still better than them being here, trapped with their parents.

"That's good," she agreed, although she only knew that he was glad they were safe. Probably. For now. "So... That room is yours, I won't even go in to clean or bring more food without knocking and asking permission." They had better respect that supreme sacrifice.

"Um.." Ice's voice came out from the doorway. He stepped through, looking around almost nervously. Warily. He stepped forward and fell into line beside Fire. He looked to Roll for a long moment, then bowed deeply, as per Japanese etiquette. "I wanted to thank you. For helping me."

She opened her arms and got up, indicating that she wanted to go closer and hug him, but she didn't want to worry them, go threateningly close to the entrance to their den. She hoped they'd feel safe in there. "You're welcome." Hug?

Ice nodded and closed the distance between them himself. He wasn't afraid. Not of her, at least.

He was shorter than his sister even though she wasn't adult. All sorts of strange to pick a midget for a bioroid's body, especially when it meant less room in the chest cavity for organs to grow. His head fit under her chin when she hugged him. They all felt that Rock wanted to hug too, but he hadn't even gotten up yet, still nervous that he would worry them.

Ice didn't want Rock to feel sad—he remembered how upset Rock was when he realized what Ice had done to himself, even if it was to survive. He held an arm out to Rock, inviting him to join in.

Rock did.

The twins didn't look anything alike, in theory. Their bodies had come from different sides of the globe: Rock was Japanese and Roll was probably Swedish (runaways moved around, especially when their country of maybe-origin was so cold).

They still looked like family, somehow, with their arms around their brother.

Maybe it was that they were bioroids, that their nonhuman halves were kin.

All of them were family here.

That hadn't saved the Eldest, but... There wasn't any harm in staying here, for now. In seeing if safety was possible, if living with humans was possible. If the peace the second eldest had fought for could be, not recovered, because true peace and equality between human and bioroid had never existed, but created.


End file.
